A hanging installation in The Hague is a symbiosis of nature and technology.
According to its designer, contemporary artist Ronald van der Meijs the piece reflects the environment where it’s hanging – the headquarters of Europol.
Since the organization deals with information management and technology, van der Meijs wanted the installation to be an intermediary between the building, the people and Europol’s function.
“My inspiration was a scientific research article about the communication of plants,’ van der Meijs says. ‘The area where a new shoot is coming out of a branch serves as an example for the shape of the sculpture. It can be seen as a metaphor of a natural expanding network, development and growth.”
Van der Meijs first made a 1:20 scale of the structure, then created a computer model. The installation is made of is made of lightweight poplar plywood, while the honeycomb plastic skin is made of Polypropylene which is typically used for stabilization of gravel roads.
It’s coated with a special acrylic paint and is suspended using metal connection parts with custom-made stainless steel cables.
