"Who is to say that a one-of-a-kind piece of marble which, with great effort, was excavated from a mountain is more valuable than a one-of-a-kind collection that is amassed and cherished for more than 35 years?"
Diederik Schneemann (1979, NL) creates work that balances between art and design. His oeuvre communicates more than aesthetics and distinguishes itself by reusing objects, changing their appearance and their use in such a way as to create a new concept and a second life, evoking a new unexpected reality. Schneemann’s creations often find their origins in existing objects. He refers to familiar iconic forms or products that reveal stories, evoke an emotion or evoke early memories and feelings.
CHERISHED
Take for example his 'Cherished Collection', Schneemann's most recent series of work, in which he uses collectibles from personal collections. Think perfume bottles, matchboxes, smurfs or cigar bands. A personal collection can be of enormous value to one person and worthless to another. A 35-year-old collection, cherished over decades, represents a certain value. Diederik Schneemann recognizes that value and treats a personal collection with the same dedication as he would have done with an expensive material such as marble or bronze. In this way, Schneemann creates a collection that has been completely transformed and is now viewed in a completely different way. It has taken on a new value and often evokes early personal memories and feelings. The matchboxes have become time capsules that take us back to the second half of the 20th century by evoking images of old hotels in faraway places or the brands of cigarettes your parents used to smoke.
LUCKY DICE
In his latest collection, Lucky Dice, designer Diederik Schneemann explores the age-old human fascination with luck. Can it be captured? Can it be held? Drawing on the tradition of lucky charms - from horseshoe to talisman - Schneemann devised a ritual of his own. In his atelier, he throws thousands of dice, setting aside every two, three, four, and five. Only the sixes are kept. Each one, landed face-up on its luckiest number, becomes a building block for a furniture object: a table, a mirror, a dressoir. The luck embedded in each throw is assembled, literally, into the piece itself, and this luck will be passed on to whoever has a ‘click’ with one of the dice objects and brings it into his personal living or working space.
Diederik Schneemann was born in Hasselt in 1979 and grew up in Maastricht. He works in lives in Rotterdam.