Nature and Communion with Studio Drift
Interview by Nick Tobias
DRIFT, Tree of Tenere, Burning Man. Photo by Stan Clawson. Courtesy of DRIFT.
Dutch design duo Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta founded Studio DRIFT in 2007. They combine art and technology to create installations that reflect on an increasingly complex world, conjuring a cacophony of emotions. With both depth and simplicity, DRIFT’s works of art illuminate parallels between man-made and natural structures through deconstructive, interactive and innovative processes.
The artists raise fundamental questions about life and explore a positive scenario for the future. DRIFT has created numerous exhibitions and projects around the world. Their work has been exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Garage Museum in Moscow, Italy’s Biennale di Venezia and Pace Gallery in New York, among others.
A-M Journal asked Nick Tobias – Founding Principal of award-winning Sydney architecture and interior design studio, Tobias Partners – to speak with Lonneke about her storied career and creative sensibilities. The conversation that ensued is a wide-ranging discussion on the pair’s communion with nature, and their mutual desire to never be boxed in.
Nick Tobias: Let’s start at the beginning – can you tell me the genesis story of Studio DRIFT?
Lonneke Gordijn: Ralph and I met in art school when I was 19 and he was 21 – we were so young. We became friends instantly and essentially fell in love. Ralph is the kind of person I have a connection with that I don't have with anyone else. We just clicked immediately, almost like we were on the same radio frequency. We sing the same song, so it's very convenient. If you don't sing the same song, it can be a little bit more complex.
We were both very adventurous people when we met, and had so many crazy experiences together. Out of all my female friends, I always was the one who wanted to do the most exciting things, and Ralph was the one who was always pushing to make things even more exciting.
We had a lot of fun, and we had endless conversations about the world and why things are the way they are, and contemplated if and how things could be different. We studied together for six years, but it was only in the last year that we also became partners.
NT: Romantic partners?
LG: Yes, absolutely. When we finished art school, we started doing our own things, but always helped each other out on various projects, and then at some point we had a place together and decided on a name for our studio without really realising the consequences. But it took a couple of years until we became one entity, thinking from one perspective. It was just all over the place. But slowly we started to see that the strongest pieces were always the ones that we made just because we wanted to make them, and not because someone else asked us to do something.
The best things we made were from the heart, when we combined nature, movement and technology to create some sort of future perspective. We also did many, many other things, but you’ll never find them on our website because they just weren’t as great.
NT: These projects and ideas sound more like art than architectural assignments.
LG: We started doing all sorts of commissions for different companies. But every time we were bound to a client who told us what they wanted, we just froze. We couldn't express ourselves, and in the end we were always more excited about our own ideas. So, essentially we funded our studio by doing all these client projects so we could pursue our own projects.
NT: It’s interesting that you guys came together through your desire to question why life is the way it is. I’m interested to know, what were you really questioning at that time?
LG: We often questioned the way humans organise themselves – structures in companies and the boringness of the office environment. We could always find adventure in it. I think one of the biggest things is the idea that we all need to live in a box. Do we really belong in a square?
NT: As the population has grown, so much of our life has become more and more of a machine, so much more standardised. It sort of feels that's the direction society is moving towards, but your work evolves in the completely opposite direction.
LG: Yeah, it was actually liberating us from the systems, and how these systems influence the way we think. We were trying to figure out what is more natural to humans and to ourselves, and to prioritise our own needs to feel more freedom. I think freedom was a huge driver for us.
NT: When humans live more in accordance and in harmony with nature than in rigid systems, there’s a definite freedom at play. I’d love to drill down on the idea of nature in your work, as it’s definitely a driving theme.
LG: Absolutely, because if you put nature in a square box, it won't stay inside. It will crawl out, and I think I feel the same.
NT: Nature is ever-evolving, it's never ever the same one moment to the next.
LG: Exactly.
NT: Whereas humans are constantly trying to create something more static.
Gordijn: I think the whole point of everything we do in our practice today is about creating environments that are not static. It's always adapting and transforming because that's what life is, and I think there is this tension between the systems we build, and nature. Systems are in place. You can move through systems in a certain way and it works if you comply, but there is always a moment when those systems are not sufficient enough because people change, or the amount of people on this planet changes.
NT: Yes, constant evolution.
LG: Yes, constant evolution. And I think the realisation of how much the environment that we are in impacts how we feel on a daily basis. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to take an amazing trip into the Amazon, and I stayed for a while with a group of people indigenous to that environment. What I learnt was that their environment is who they are, there is no separation. I knew this from books and theories, but I had never experienced it in this way. I saw it, I felt it and suddenly I could understand it in a different way and that impacted me a lot.
It allowed me to realise the intertwined-ness of our brains, and how we feel with other people in a space, and how space can separate you because you just lose yourself being in the Metro every day, and going to work when it's super busy. When is there a moment to actually feel relaxed, where you can connect with others? It has everything to do with how we create our environment.
NT: It makes the idea of static architecture sound almost crazy, because everything is so static and so structured and so unadaptable, and you see even the way that the natural environment changes around architecture. Sometimes they are really at odds with each other.
LG: Absolutely. And it's a very difficult topic because, of course, static architecture comes from trying to protect us from nature. In many ways this was also one of the reasons humans could evolve. But it’s become not just one wall, but many, many walls.
NT: Your work really makes that leap where you're bringing nature into an environment.
LG: Yeah, and of course, you can also bring plants in some more logical way to bring nature inside. But what we bring in is the transformational aspect and movement. What I've always noticed is that if I'm in my house, in between four walls, I cannot stay inside the whole day. I just have to get out. I have to move. When I'm in a natural environment where everything is constantly changing, I don’t have to move, I can just be there.
Somehow there needs to be a changing movement in your life, and if it's not in your environment, then you go elsewhere to seek it. If it is in your environment, then you can be still and silent and at peace. That is why I live on a houseboat, because I really don't want to be put in a box anymore, even though I’m still protected by some walls. I have this feeling of floating.
NT: Movement is another predominant theme in your work – can you tell me a little about this?
LG: We have a couple of works that we program in a certain way. For example, there is one work called Amplitude, and it's almost like a spine. It has glass tubes with a hinge and there's around 20 in a row, and they all move a fraction of a second later than the one before. It's a very simple movement, but if you program it too fast, there is an aggression that comes into the space, and you really feel it. So the way you program it really aligns with your calm heartbeat.
Even if you're not calm, your heart wants to go there, and your breathing wants to go there because it feels good. And your body always wants to align with the energy of the space. It does it automatically, even if you don't want to. After five minutes or 10 minutes, you feel different.
NT: Totally. Recently, I've been wearing this device where you can see what's happening with your heart rate and a whole lot of other things that are going on in your body, and the way you respond just to spaces and situations – and it doesn't lie.
LG: I think it's beautiful to bring that actively into our environments, and to be more aware. Also, we know when we measure, but we could also know just because we know… Or maybe you already knew, but we need proof. That is also how we are programmed. We only believe things when we see some numbers or when some scientist tells us. But actually this knowledge is already in our bodies. It's already with us, we just have to learn to trust it and listen to it. And then whenever you are stressed, or you feel not so great, and you want to feel better, you can actively find those situations, or create those situations.
NT: I'm an architect but I often go back to music as that’s my other love. There’s always an optimum rhythm where the song feels right, and it's very similar in the work that you're talking about, where you’re finding that perfect rhythm for the situation.
LG: Absolutely. I love to experiment with that, and then I love to see how it impacts an audience, and to create an exhibition or space and just be in that space, and nobody knows who I am, and I'm just absorbed.
NT: Do you test that in the studio? Do you test all of those different vibrations whether they are aural or visual?
LG: Yes, I do. But I can somehow step out of my mind for a moment and just be with the work and then start feeling…and I have to feel it. And it shouldn’t just be once, every time I see it again I connect with it, and then I do it again. It shouldn't be a one-time effect, because always the first time you see it, you're like wow, but it needs this deeper layer. You need to ask ‘what does this do to me? How does it make me feel?’ I immediately feel it. Now I’ve learnt how to tap into that quite quickly, and now I trust myself. Once I know I feel that way, I know it's right. But then you have to bring it to the audiences, and of course everyone is different. But most people, the general public will have the same reaction because they open themselves up to it.
NT: This has come up a few times in the discussion we’ve had. It feels to me that you are very connected to your body and the feelings in your body, and that is a real source of your art.
LG: Yes, I think that's also maybe how I make decisions. Some things can be reasoned and rationalised, and that's just how you make a decision. But the hard decisions in your life, you cannot reason them because you can't find a solution in your mind. The only way you can find a solution is in your body, and actually confronting yourself with the situation and listening to how that makes you feel… If it excites you, if it fuels you, or if it’s strange and you get scared.
Whenever I’m confronted with difficult situations, I try not to think about it – I just try and feel it. I really try that, because I think being connected with how you feel is so much better at telling if something is right or wrong than the mental arguments.
NT: The body is so connected with nature, and the mind is just this difficult animal. It’s good for getting things done but it’s not necessarily to be trusted.
LG: Yeah, it’s like… It would be really good to do this for my career, but I don't feel like it. But why not?
NT: Yeah, you feel some resistance in your body.
LG: I used to not always listen to that, of course like everyone. I still sometimes have the mind that tells you that it's really good, but then everything in you tells you that it's not, and sometimes I just listen to that.
And in the meantime, Ralph and I are not a couple anymore. We're not in a romantic relationship anymore. We still work together. But sometimes I just want to tell him, no I don't want to do it. And he’s like why? And I just know, and I don't even want to have that argument. It's very annoying for people around me, but I just know, and I don't even want to reason it. It's very stubborn.
NT: If you are let's say 80% heart and 20% head, is Ralph the same?
LG: No.
NT: So, he's complementary?
LG: He's complementary on everything, I think. But also on other things like that I want to reason because I think they're just practical, but then he gets very emotional. So, we are very, very complementary. That is also our biggest challenge… That is our process, to become one in the process.
NT: I want to hear a little bit about that… How the dance takes place and how the collaboration takes place and between the two of you. Because it's always interesting in an equal power dynamic. How do you go through the process?
LG: Some things are very obvious for both of us, and some things are just arguments and fights. I think the work is done when we are both satisfied with both our perspectives. And I think that's why a lot of the time there is this calm, and this inner work, because we have sorted out those differences.
NT: But it's the calm after the storm.
LG: The work is always the solution. The solution of our differences.
DRIFT, I Am Storm, 2023. Exhibition view, TextielMuseum, Tilburg, Netherlands, 2023. Photo by Ronald Smits. Courtesy of DRIFT.
NT: We’ve talked a lot about emotions and feelings and nature in your work, but where does the technical knowledge come from? And how do you bring these deeply creative ideas and thoughts together with such high-tech execution?
LG: Basically I communicate how things have to move, and of course Ralph and I also have insights into a lot of technologies. We have quite naturally technical backgrounds, but we always collaborate with whatever and whoever we think we need, or with what technology we need. Once we have the feeling or the idea that we want to express, we're going to research how to do it, and sometimes you start it yourself and then you find out that you need a specialist. So we seek collaborations and we also have a big team with different specialties. I learn from every process. It's really bringing me more knowledge and more understanding.
NT: It's a very clear and powerful lens that you look through.
LG: Yeah, for me that lens gets more and more clear, and more and more focused.
NT: And it seems to be the way you are, the way you feel, the way you speak. It’s also in the way you live, the way you work and the work you produce. I can see from talking to you, that you are an expression of your art in that way.
LG: Yes, maybe. I think what interests me in this world is really what I'm doing. I always want to know more, I want to dive deeper. So, in that sense, I think I'm doing that. I'm finding that out through the work that I make, and I'm also learning from my mistakes, and from the roads that I take where I end up somewhere completely different than where I began.
NT: Then of course the beautiful thing is what you're bringing to other people, and what you're teaching other people by experiencing the beauty in those works.
LG: That’s what I hope our work is doing. I want to have an impact. I want people to discover by themselves the connection with others and with their environment. That's really my purpose… To find it out for myself and communicate it. I don't really believe in educating through lectures or books, I believe in education through true experiences.