Desirée Hammen (1976) is a designer/visual artist, embroidery specialist, florist/gardener, teacher and future material researcher. She studied at the fashion department of Artez in Arnhem and specialised in haute couture embroidery at the renowned École Lesage in Paris.
Desirée explores the beauty of imperfection. Her work, in which she combines haute couture and freestyle techniques, is described as poetic, chaotic, intense and playful. Alongside her own practice, Desirée initiates projects in which she collaborates with a community to create collective embroidery works, such as a large picnic blanket as part of action research in a multicultural neighbourhood in ’s-Hertogenbosch, and a project involving 500 participants at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Furthermore, with support from the Stimuleringsfonds, she has carried out a long-term research project into bio-based materials and their application in textiles and embroidery.
Desirée has been teaching at the Textiles and Fashion department of the KABK since 2014. She had held solo exhibitions in Eindhoven, Vienna and New York and has taken part in group exhibitions in Beijing, Shanghai, Istanbul and Paris. She gives masterclasses for Craft Council NL and is part of their research project: the Embroidery School.