Fransje Killaars
Summer/Fall 1999
Fransje Killaars stayed together with her husband and their daughter Céline at Het Vijfde Seizoen. Fransje Killaars became fascinated by the smoking addictions of many clients and counselors. She asked them to collect butts in their individual units. Together with the clients she threaded a giant curtain out of these thousands of cigarette butts, thus creating a collective work of art. She did this by using the same colorful acrylic threads she uses when manufacturing her textile works.
The collective work of art symbolizes the scarce amount of freedom the inhabitants have; a moment for themselves. The ‘curtain’ was exhibited at Het Vijfde Seizoen in 2001 and shown in Galerie De Expeditie in Amsterdam. It is now part of the collection of Het Vijfde Seizoen.
For many years Villevoye’s work has been strongly influenced by his visits to the Asmat area in Indonesian Papua, the former Dutch New Guinea. The Asmat people attribute a great spiritual and emotional importance to trees, out of which they chipped ancestral statues. Villevoye recognizes the therapeutic significance that can be derived from cultivating wood. He asked some patients to carve personal signs in trees in the woods around the grounds. He then documented these signs in the book 'Carving'.
