Out and About – Thijs Jaeger

What have you been up to in the past year?
“After my last exhibition in 2020, there was a lot of time for reflection. Besides writing about my work, I also started collecting and making music. I am currently working on a commissioned work for the garden of the Franciscus Xaverius Church. The church is named after an important missionary who had to bring the Christian faith to Indonesia, among other places. In order to link my Indonesian origins to this work, I am now researching temple bells and Indonesian/Chinese kèpèng coins. The Tropenmuseum has a number of temple bells and various kèpèng sculptures in its collection and I hope to use them to do further research into the sound and music they make. This is partly because I want to make new music for my grandmother. Music can evoke a very nostalgic feeling and with this work I want to create a place for her. She came to the Netherlands from Indonesia, left everything behind and became a Catholic.”

What are you presenting today?
“In my work, I associate myths, religions and stories without authors with the Internet and data. The fountain “Well…Well…Well…” came about after a journey through Japan. There I saw a rain drain where water slowly trickled down along a chain of chalices. Water has interesting similarities with data; it only forms when it is ‘in’ something. The chalices are 3D-scans from public archives and cast in resin. The fountain, with its endlessly trickling water, symbolizes an information source with a continuous flow of data."