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Nienke Hoogvliet: Designer of the new world

With her studio, Nienke Hoogvliet focuses on developing sustainable materials and products that can contribute to a more holistic world. Design as a tool for new perspectives! MASTERS sought out Nienke, who is considered one of the most important designers of the new, green, generation of Dutch designers, in her studio in The Hague. "It almost always starts with a frustration or fascination. Huh, how can this be?"

How did your fascination with design come about?

"I have my mother's hands and my father's head. My mother was always making; I really grew up among the pieces of fabric and will be behind the sewing machine at a fairly young age. I wanted to make and decided to go to art school. There I learned more and more how you can tell a story with art or design and also change something in the world. I got that from my father: he is very idealistic and not materialistic at all."

What was his ideal before?

"As the director of a housing cooperative, he has always been very concerned with social projects. How can you bring the various layers of society together? How can you do things for the environment? I got things like that from him."

What was your very first creation?

"Pretty soon at the Willem de Kooning Academy I made some kind of body parts out of fabric, using a different technique for each body part. One leg I had completely trimmed with beads, for the other I had burned fabric and sewed that on in strips. I found it so insane to do! Even then I knew I wanted my own design studio later."

After you graduated in 2013, you immediately started your own studio. To what extent does Tim Jongerius play a role in that?

"Tim is my boyfriend, who I've been with since I was 16. He has a background in architecture. We did and will continue to do some projects together. But Studio Nienke Hoogvliet is otherwise separate from that."

With your design, you want to convey stories: how are they created?

"It almost always starts with a frustration or fascination. It can be something in society, the environment, I read something, experience something... Hey, how can this be? How is this put together? Do I agree with that? Then I start doing research, like reading or interviewing people. And from there I start thinking about how to shape this story to share it with the world. So the shaping itself comes at a later stage."

There is plenty to be annoyed about in the world. What are you most concerned about at the moment?

"I'm very much into value and values now. How does a product get both financial and emotional value? And how is that distinction made by people? Because very often people quickly think something is too expensive, even though they don't know what it took to make it. And if they did know, wouldn't they think 'oh, but that's what I'm willing to pay for it'?"

Do you mean it is better to spend more money on something that is durable.

"Yes. For one person organic meat will be very important, for someone else it might be about the working conditions under which something is made or the CO2 emissions involved. The moment you know how something was created, you can judge whether it also matches your values as a human being. That probably means that you will spend more money on it and use it longer. If you're very proud of a product you buy, you might be more likely to get it repaired than to take it to the thrift store."

What came out when you worked with that story about value and values?

"This project I did all together with Tim. The more we delved into it, the more complicated it became. It's so personal, we can't make a statement about it as designers. We can't say "these are the right values or this is the right value. That's why we chose to create an interactive installation called Value // Values and present it at Dutch Design Week in October 2021. We presented two rugs, both made of wool, one made in the Netherlands, the other in Armenia. In doing so, we followed the whole production process, from sheep to rug. First, we asked the visitors what they thought the rugs would cost if you bought them in stores in the Netherlands, without knowing anything about the manufacturing process. On the back of the rugs was a receipt visible that specified everything: where the sheep lived, what they were fed, how old they got, how much it took to make this wool... Really everything. And also the costs involved. Then we asked people to rate how important they thought certain values were, so for example animal welfare, working conditions, aesthetics... In the end we asked them for a final judgment. After being informed about the whole making process, did they still think the rugs were worth the same or had they changed their opinion? 4,500 people participated in that. Very many were embarrassed at how far wrong they were. The Dutch rug should cost ten thousand euros, the Armenian one around five to six thousand.You heard comments like 'what a shame that I go to IKEA to buy a rug of a few hundred euros'. For a lot of people it was confrontational. I am now processing all the reactions, which will also result in a book. We also made an overview of what the whole project cost: in hours, what we received in subsidies, what we put into it ourselves... Then you see that a project like this is actually not financially viable at all."

How much did the project cost?

"150,000 euros, from A to Z. We got 22,500 euros in subsidy and with that we just managed to cover all the costs: the production of the rugs, the photography, things like that. We only put in hours and didn't earn anything from it. So the project cost us money. That's not sustainable, in the sense that I can't do a project like this every year. So I want to move toward a transparent revenue model for my studio, where I can show people that commercial projects might be more expensive because I want to keep making that own work as well."

This photo and photo above: The installation Value//Values: two rugs made of wool-one made in the Netherlands, the other in Armenia-with a receipt on the back with specifications and costs of the making process. Photography: Hannah Braeken

To what extent does such a story actually help make the world a better place?

"I work according to a system with three levels of impact. The first level is to proclaim my story through a prototype - a unique piece that hopefully ends up in a museum collection - and thereby create awareness among those who see it; the second level is to make a limited edition to prove that it can be scaled up; the third level is mass production or at least implementation in industry. An example is natural textile dye from seaweed: I started that once in my studio, on a small scale. Now it's moving from phase two to three, so that it can really be used in that industry. To this end, the start-up Zeefier has been created, of which I am co-founder, which focuses on further developing this paint. Currently working with scientists and industry, the idea is to actually build a factory."

How did you come up with it: paint from seaweed?

"Once I bought a sea algae yarn from a Belgian yarn supplier. From that I made Sea Me: a carpet of sea algae yarn hand-knotted in an old fishing net. Seaweed yarn was already on the market, I just wanted to create more awareness of it. But I was inundated with requests from companies that also wanted to work with this yarn. I approached the supplier and suggested we work together. But that company had lost faith in the material after ten years of hard work and pulled its hands off it.I decided to take it up independently, but then wanted to investigate how to make the best use of that seaweed. Besides the component from which the yarn is made, it might contain components for other uses, such as the dye. It turned out that many different colors could be made from different types of seaweed: brown, orange, green, pink, purple, yellow, red... That's when I knew: this should not stay small, this should go into industry. The textile industry is, after the oil industry, the most polluting industry in the world.It amazed me that no one thought about the fact that when you buy a shirt in the store, it can be bad for both your own health and for our environment. It just has carcinogens in it. Is that worth it to you to look nice? And how can an industry be okay with that? The big advantage of seaweed is that it is a very sustainable resource: it grows quickly and needs CO2 as a nutrient. Textile dye, on the other hand, is made from harmful chemicals and also, unlike seaweed dye, is hardly biodegradable."

With all the knowledge you have, can you still shop clothes normally?

"No. I only buy secondhand anymore and only natural, so nothing with synthetics in it."

You live in The Hague: does such an idea for Sea Me arise while walking on the beach?

"Indeed. I was walking along the beach and saw all this plastic lying there - that was before there was any talk about plastics soup. I thought: if there is so much plastic on the beach, which is also cleaned regularly, how much is floating in the sea? I wanted to draw attention to that, but in a positive way: by showing how much potential the sea also has when it comes to new sustainable materials and why we should therefore also treat the sea with care. I have tried to bring these two contrasts - pollution and solution - together in this single garment.I think that the entire sustainability discussion is often still viewed too short-sightedly. There are now companies that present themselves as sustainable because, for example, they make textiles from plastic from the sea. But what they don't realize is that if you put those textiles in the washing machine, so many microplastics are released into the sea through wastewater that the problem is not actually solved at all. A lot of people don't realize that you have to look at a lot of different aspects of a problem to actually find a solution. The key is to be as comprehensive as possible. If you come up with a solution, it shouldn't create another problem somewhere else."

Another new sustainable application of your hand is Mourn: an urn that prevents groundwater pollution.

"I worked with the Dutch Water Boards for a number of years. They are working to develop as many materials as possible from the water treatment process. One of them is PHA, a bio-plastic. The bacteria that eat that wastewater clean produce a fatty acid that has properties similar to plastic but is completely biodegradable. They commissioned me to make something from that material that shows how beautiful and functional that degradability can be. That's quite a struggle, because as a designer you naturally want a product you design to actually last a long time. Because the body always returns to nature, I started researching the sustainability of burial and cremation. From that came Mourn, an urn made by mixing ashes and bio-plastic. As long as that urn is inside, nothing will change. As soon as you place it outside, the PHA will slowly break down, releasing the ashes. Because plants and organisms are given time to process the ashes this way, you avoid soil and groundwater pollution. Because normally when ashes are scattered, they run right into the earth with the rain and end up in the groundwater."

What stage is the urn currently in?

"He was almost in phase two, but it's too much to start a start-up in addition to a studio and Zeefier. So I put that on pause for a while. I have a lot of plans and ambitions, but only two hands."

Yet another assignment from the Dutch Water Boards resulted in the project Water Treasures. Tell.

"Every year 180,000 tons of toilet paper is flushed down Dutch toilets. That is equivalent to 180,000 trees. Using highly sophisticated treatment plants, the Water Boards filter the cellulose fibers of toilet paper from the wastewater, which they then hygienize without the use of chemicals. So then you actually have heartily usable paper pulp again, although it cannot be made into toilet paper again - the fiber has become too short for that. By reusing the pulp, fewer trees have to be cut down.What the Water Boards ran into: many companies did not dare to work with that material, because the idea of reusing used toilet paper is not very fresh. Hence they asked me to make something with it that would make people see its beauty and value. From this pulp I made tables, bowls and lamps, among other things - a whole living room setting - to create a positive association with the material. Also, the material could be used as a runoff inhibitor in asphalt. Normally there are pebbles in asphalt and paper is added to them to ensure that they do not sink to the bottom, but float on the asphalt, so to speak. For example, there is already a bicycle path in Friesland made with this pulp."

Your studio is almost ten years old. What will the next ten years look like?

"It's taken me the last ten years to find myself, to really know who I want to be as a designer and what stories I want to tell. In the next ten years I want to continue developing that, and then I hope to have enough financial resources to keep doing my own projects. And with that to excite people. I want to show consumers and industry that things can be done differently. The more they become aware of this, the more pressure there will be on the government. My design should lead to new perspectives and ultimately a better world."

MASTERS MAGAZINE

In the summer edition of MASTERS, an interview with Sven Kramer, a driving impression of the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport and an examination of Max's Effect. But above all, it features people who bring light into the darkness. Like Henk Jan Beltman, who took over Tony's Chocolonely because with a business you can make the world a more beautiful place. Chef Emile van der Staak, who has the ambition to change our food culture and therefore cooks with plants and vegetables sourced from the food forest. Designer Nienke Hoogvliet, who has introduced natural seaweed paint as an alternative to harmful textile dyes. And Anna Nooshin, who denounces the current social media culture of pretty pictures. In her documentary, she also shares the less beautiful aspects of her life. All of them people who ask questions, present mirrors, make steps. Steps toward a healthier world and more understanding society.

 

MASTERS #50