Art projects

The Hand of my Father:

On March 23 1946 my father, then Soldier Jan Fakkeldij lost his hand while cleaning the woods in Drenthe from ammunition from the second world war that was all laying around . As he stood in one of the large warehouses, where he had to store it, a grenade began to tap in his right hand. He didn’t want to throw it away because then there would be a huge disaster and all the ammunition would explode, people would get killed. He switched the grenade from his right hand (he was right handed) to his left and pulled his arm with the grenade into the air. It went off. He was seriously injured, lost his hand and partly his arm, but saved lives.

While he was coming out of a coma, two high-ranking military officers were standing by his bed who wanted him to sign a document that it was all his own fault in order to avoid liability because they had put all those young soldiers to work there without instructions.

I want a monument to what he did, a grave for his hand and recognition for his heroic deed.! Jan was 18 years old.

New Graphic scores to come:

Notes of a Nut: a score related to the war in the Ukraine by Russia. The title is inspired by the play: Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol, about a minor civil servant getting mad.

The Crash: an almost finished graphic score related toinstallation The Crash by director Tjepke Zijlstra

Noord Sider, the Mascot of the North of Amsterdam

A design for a Mascot imaging the North of Amsterdam. The young men who live there now call themselves Noord-Siders. So that became the name of the mascot. It has all kind of references like the Ferry, the waterlilies and fishes and “the arm” is a peat shovel. It is wearing the cap of a workman form the 1930 tees who worked in the harbours and shipbuilding in Amsterdam Noord. And it has the coloured rainbow rope related to the diversity.

I would like to think of it as a male/female figure The print of it will be huge and shown and is acquired by Property Rochdale.

Graphic scores

Graphic scores, improvisations

Improvisations are small compositions that are made to create the visual musical language.

Graphic Scores: The land, The lockdown, The revelation. Sound by Reniet Vrieze.

Graphic Scores: The universe. Sound Henk Fakkeldij

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What does fear sound like?

A graphic score about the WWI. What does fear sound like, was also the title from my solo exhibition in the Boterhal in Hoorn 2021. What is interesting about the settings of this score is that you have the sounds in the tunnels under the ground vs the sounds of the Flaunders Fields, the burned grounds. I added the sounds of the world of the dead. Sadly it is still applicable to any war.

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Crash 2021/2022

Crach is an assignment from director film maker Tjepke Zijlstra. He had been in a severe car-crash in Italy and asked me to make visuals based on his experiment just after the crash, when he walked outside while he had no idea anymore where he was. There was some ‘guide’ beside him all the time and he had flashbacks in the form of energy. A very challenging and abstract question that I really love to put my teeth in! As a research I had a conversation with also someone who had two times a nearly dead experience.

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Homeless

Amsterdam is the city in which I works and live. I saw the people sleeping on the street and in the porches, so I decided to create work around that theme. I started photographing the homeless and also people sleeping save and sound in their own bed. I visited the polluted houses of people who were reported missing, taken in custody or went to a mental hospital. Most of the houses were filled tot the ceiling with waste and were representing the lives of those who lost it or left. The bike is in the collection of The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

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The Flood

The artworks are based and inspired by a Flood from 1918. My work was exhibited in the historical churches and in Museum The Speeltoren at Monnickendam, one of the villages that had suffered from the Flood. The work was based on a self written story and consisted form visuals sounds stories and designed smells.

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WWI

I was asked by the historical physician Leo van Bergen to make drawings for his touching book Amongst the dying. From that point on I got more interest in this terrible war and created more works. I had several exhibitions with these works

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Perfumes

I saw the famous having their perfume. I wanted one too. The process could be a performance and the bottles pieces of art. My first perfume was created around 1969. Golden Ophelius, a perfume men dream of and Hamletta, a wet dream for women. My first publication was in the Penthouse 😊. I went out on the street to ask people to smell so that I could take there portrait of them.

At a certain point I decided to create perfumes form places and spaces. I was invited to create a perfume from Lombok, a part of the City Utrecht where I was born ( L’ eau de Lombok) and also to create one from new developed part of Amsterdam (New Domain). And I created perfumes from the museums where I was showing my work, Frans Hals Museum (Frans!), Fodor Museum (Fodeur) I then interviewed visitors and asked them to smell my perfume and photographed them. They could download their portrait from the internet where I published them. I only show a small selection here.

Smelling my perfume

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Mail-Art/Book-art/Stamp-Art/Ephemera

Mail-Art: Artworks sent via the postal system.

I worked in the Mail Art Gallery/Archive of Ulises Carrion. He had the first gallery/archive in the world named Other Books And So. at the Bloemgracht in Amsterdam.

Book-art: Books that are created as a piece of art. They could have any form but are having a sequence. Like for instance Arte Postale (See pics). Book-art was a term first used by Ulises Carrion from Other Books and so Archive in Amsterdam.

Stamp-Art, Rubber stamps: As what you sent is most of the time relatively small, and often in a edition, rubber stamps are really handy tools to create some art work.

Stamp-Art, Postage stamps: Creating your own postage stamps as miniature form of art adds a lot of beauty to your mail.

Ephemera: everything else like posters and flyers.

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