From Plant to Paint to Public

From Plant to Paint to Public, 2021-ongoing

During a two-day performance on September 10 and 11 2025, in front of industrial paint producer akzonobel’s art space, the history of allotments gardens and agricultural fields upon which the current zuidas of Amsterdam is built resurfaced.

Following years of gradual development, in september 2025 curator Jules van den Langenberg and artist Annee Grøtte Viken shared their research and plans for a new type of public artwork: a site-specific work that is based on a plant to paint to public principle.

About five hundred people joined the transformation of an original 1960’s Friso Kramer street lantern by ‘woodgraining‘, a traditional painting technique for imitating wood using natural pigments, water and linseed oil.

The goal? To bring back a sense of site-specific production to the streets and public spaces of the Dutch capital.

The performance is part of a longer-term search of the artist and curator in collaboration with the (Nelly&)Theo van Doesburg foundation, to find a permanent destination for a series of circles used for cultivating flax in a neighborhood currently under construction. During sowing and harvesting, the circles become sites for social gatherings and seasonal harvest feasts. Once the flax is matured it is processed into linseed oil, traditionally used as a base for paint. Together with locally sourced pigments, an all-natural paint is then applied to buildings benches, lanterns, and bins in public spaces, using age-old techniques of marble and wood imitation. Giving everyday objects a monumental presence and patina or living colours.

The plant to paint to public performance in the public space of amsterdam’s zuidas is an early prototype of this vision: a vintage street lantern, repainted with linseed oil paint and transformed into a vessel of stories, community, and craft.

To review the public art work development proces visit www.theovandoesburgstichting.nl/agenda.