Systems are the essence of Saskia Noor van Imhoff’s practice. She reflects on the rules and regulations that make for our conditions of living in both her exhibitions and individual works. This entails reflections on man-made structures: the ways we are educated and disciplined through knowledge systems, (in)formalities of cultureand, human structures that systematically classify and differentiate. These are artificial categories created for the distinctive purpose of ordering our environment and allocating value. This includes differentiation between here and there, then and now, human and nature, commodity and waste, objects and materials or, plant and animal species. Her practice is concerned with the fundamental architecture of our existence in an artistic context, this would include the modes of selection, curating and preservation regarding our surroundings: the considerations that make for the political forces that ascribe value and produce appreciation and (re)presentation of art.

Most recently, she has expanded her focus to the land, acquiring a plot of rural farmland on the northern coast of the Netherlands. This plot of land has become, as she defines it, an ‘organic collection’ that she has been exploring in her work ever since, as she restores, responds to, and works with the historic land she lives on today. Transplanting her studio practice to this former dairy farm in the Dutch countryside, Van Imhoff’s research has been drawn to the idea of the land as a repository of knowledge, an expression of its own history, and a resource to learn more about ourselves. The process of documenting and rehabilitating the site forms the basis of her work, creating installations that echo the space outside of their original environment - the resulting photographs and sculptural installations examining systems of perception, archiving and archaeology. While addressing ideas of stewardship and our responsibility to and reliance on the land, she also questions the idea of a collection as a knowledge system and a mechanism that selects, differentiates, and classifies.

Saskia Noor van Imhoff (b. 1982 in Mission, CA) lives and works in Amsterdam and Mirns (NL). Van Imhoff was awarded the, 2017 Prix de Rome (NL), 2017 ABN Amro ArtPrize (NL), the 2012 Walter Tielmann Prize for Book Design (DE) and the 2008 Gerrit Rietveld Academie Prize (NL). Van Imhoff has had exhibitions at various venues including: Fries Museum, Leeuwarden (NL); Centraal Museum, Utrecht (NL); AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam (NL); the Arnulf Rainer Museum, Baden (AT); Kunsthal, Rotterdam (NL); Frans Halsmuseum De Hallen, Haarlem (NL); the 11th Gwangju Biennial (KR); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (FR); Frans Hals Museum DeHallen, Haarlem (NL); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (NL); De Appel, Amsterdam (NL) and the Moscow Biennial (RU).