Spannum, Netherlands. With the artwork Guernica de la Ecología, sponsored by the Iona Stichting, artist and activist Claudy Jongstra makes a statement against human destruction of the environment. An interview.
With what intention have you created Guernica de la Ecología? Picasso painted his Guernica (1937) to protest the pain and devastation caused by the Spanish Civil War. I created Guernica de la Ecología at the same scale (790 x 360 cm) in protest of the ongoing ecocide–the mass destruction of the natural environment by humans. The monochromatic palette, echoing the tones used by Picasso, is an urgent warning against the disappearance of biodiversity, constantly threatened by intensive monoculture, pollution, and a lack of collective stewardship of our ecosystems.
What did the creation process of the art piece look like? The artwork always begins on our small, biodynamic farm in the northern province of Friesland, The Netherlands, with our Drenthe Heath sheep and heirloom, biodynamic color plants. We have a deep respect and appreciation for these materials because we have grown them ourselves for 30 years now. The wool is sheared every spring, and each season brings its own palette of natural dye colors. For the monochromatic palette of Guernica, we used walnut (soft brown) and a combination of walnut with madder, woad, and indigo to create a variation of the historic “Burgundian Black.” The historical reconstruction of this complex, natural black color in our dye atelier was the result of years of collaborative research with ERC Artechne as well as universities, museums, and various experts, drawing from manuscripts and “books of secrets” written by generations of 15th–17th-century master dyers across Europe.
Which values inform your work as an artist? Ecological stewardship translated into materiality is the hallmark of my artwork. Reviving the connection between a healthy ecosystem and the quality of fiber and the vitality of color not only brings my artwork to life but also forms the basis of educational programming we have developed to preserve this vital connection for generations to come.
More Guernica de la Ecología, Iona Stichting
Translation Charles Cross
Image Claudy Jongstra in front of Guernica de la Ecología for the exhibition Woven Skin at the International Biodynamic Conference at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. Photo: Christiaan Jaeggi
