Rising Stars: Ilona Rijkeboer

“My life – and therefore my artistic practice – is significantly driven by a deep curiosity about sociocultural processes. Past and present are all mixed into who we are now and who we will be tomorrow. How do we identify ourselves in an ever-changing environment and how does this affect our interaction with the people around us? I change my location of residence, observe and create. To document. To initiate a reflective process, an invitation to interact.” Ilona Rijkeboer (b. 1992, the Netherlands) studied Fine Arts at LUCA in Belgium and at ECA in Scotland. She is currently based in Germany, where she works on a series of large drawings.

The Manual series emerged from the realisation of how self-evidently symbols and images can replace or even transcend the use of words. Visual language agreements make it possible for us to understand signs and depicted gestures for the usage of tools in (instruction) manuals. Visual language is mainly determined by cultural practices and time; it is relatively independent from linguistic boundaries.

Cultural practices and consequently the use of visual language are changing at an accelerating pace due to technological innovations. Instruction manuals with static images are, for example, increasingly being replaced by digital moving images.

By taking fragments from manuals and tool catalogues to create new compositions, Ilona Rijkeboer plays with the limits of static visual language to convey meaning. The new ‘manuals’ simultaneously document the culture and time in which they are created. The fossil appearance hints at their approaching status: will they be valued as cultural heritage and preserved, or simply forgotten?

The series consists of 52 works, two of which are not numbered but named after Charles Poulsen and Pauline Burbidge, who facilitated the realisation of the series