This summer, Inge Meijer was a guest in Kunsthuis Syb. During her residency, she worked on Community Garden, a project in which she collaborated with a group of volunteers from the Tropical Greenhouse. Her starting point was the work of Duván Antonio Ramírez, who grows plants on the roof of his house and transports them in his car.

Plants play an important role in both the volunteers’ and Ramírez’s work, by connecting the people who care for them. Meijer examined this relationship and translated it to her own car: an object that often shows little connection to its surroundings. During the residency, she worked on a film in which the car becomes part of the landscape.

The love and attention for plants also comes to the fore in the story of Geert Hemminga. As a twelve-year-old boy, he started working in the Tropical Greenhouse and took care of the plants there for more than 50 years. His daughter continues his work and is now a volunteer herself. In addition to a series of old photos of plants taken by her father, she also had a pile of his handkerchiefs. Inge printed these old-fashioned handkerchiefs with photos of plants from the greenhouse.

Inge Meijer completed a BA at the ArtEZ Academy of Fine Arts and Design in 2012 and finished the two-year residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam in 2017. Her work has been exhibited in institutions and galleries both in Amsterdam – where she is based – and abroad, including the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, UNSEEN, Museum Arnhem, and the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju, South Korea. Her work is represented by Galerie Akinci, and her publication, The Plant Collection, was selected for the Best Dutch Book Designs in 2020.