Silke Riis

Site-specific intervention on the apple trees of ATV Piccardthof as part of my residency in the community garden with het resort. These sculptures were made directly on the trunks of the trees of a vegan birdseed mixture that i developed during the residency. The sculptures serve as an invitation to the local birds to collaborate with me, as they by eating the seeds would reshape the sculptures and become sculptors alongside myself.

Close-up

A site-specific sculpture made from locally sourced clay and dead (but still poisonous!!) giant hogweeds during the first field trip of my residency at Het Resort. My sculpture was inspired by the giant hogweed, a beautiful invasive giant whose stalk sap is phototoxic, meaning that if it gets on skin and reacts to UV-light it can cause serious burns, blisters and rashes. After almost getting burned myself (oops), I decided to cover up the stalk in a protective layer of locally sourced Drenthe clay, perhaps as a softer defense mechanism. In its 5 hour lifespan this sculpture endured everything the autumn weather had to offer, including hail straight after birth, and made friends with various visitors and their phones before I (carefully) had to pull its already dead body out of the clay again. A short-lived star, yes, but isn't it really about the friends we made along the way anyways?

2023 has by far been the wildest year of my life yet and I can’t really fathom the fact that it is coming to an end. In the span of this year I have experienced 50 shades of existential anxiety, uncomparable happiness, deafening stress and endless, endless love. This year marked my 25th birthday and for the first time ever I felt like an actual adult. I guess standing face to face with the mortality of those you love does that to a person. As I recently looked back on everything that happened this year, my fingers started itching for this sculpture and I blindly had to make it. It didn’t turn out big or carefully executed, but was instead born out of an urgency to represent a melancholy that I have carried around since last December. I keep searching for beauty and comfort in the fact that everything, even my roots, my family, my identity, will grow and change until we all one day will disappear, but it is not always easy. Most of the time it is just scary to be honest. For now, this search took the shape of this semi-ephemeral sculpture which I will look forward to watching rust and change when the latex decomposes as the year passes by

Three sculptures of mine in the exhibition Hybrid Realms at Trixie

Close-up of my Corpse Flower sculpture

Bathroom 1, wheelchair friendly bathroom

Bathroom 2

Bathroom 1 - Close-up of speculative sea cucumber in aquarium

Bathroom 2 - Close-up of something unexpectedly growing in one of the aquariums

Bathroom 2 - Close-up of aquarium and latex root-roof

Bathroom 1 - Close-up of cucumbers ceiling

RRR x Ijskast bakfiets on their Nomadic exhibition, which among other miniature works showcased my "Pivirøv whistle"

Manifestations at Dutch Design Week 2023

Suncatchers in the port of Bruges for Konvooi Festival 2023

Close-up of decay of Suncatchers in the port of Bruges for Konvooi Festival 2023

Full room installation, consisting of 15 sculptures, 2 site-specific pieces, humidifiers, PVC-strip-covered entry-/exist-points, and an interactive element of scented spray bottles.

3 pieces

Ceramic piece with lid. The lid has holes for matching latex pieces, but potentially also for flowers

Site-specific piece made on sink.

I ripped the latex off of "Skinned sink" and reinstalled it as a relief.

Being sprayed with scented water to accelerate its decaying process.

Site-specific piece, made for the tree in front of Villa Mautner-Jäger on Landstraßer Hauptstraße 140-142, Vienna, Austria. Inspired by the ivy that has completely taken over the villa. My contribution to The Angewandte Festival 2022, as part of the site-specific exhibition in public space "Wissen Der Stadt"

A collaborative work made together with Konstantin Leitner for the exhibition "playing string figures" at Kunstverein Baden. Besides my sculpture, we made a tourist guide/flyer, explaining the (fake) history of the Horse Tragedy that happened in 2003 in Baden, Austria, causing the infamous "One Horse Rule"-law, which states that no-one in Baden can own a horse. Instead, the government of Baden has established one horse, paid by tax-money, which is viewed as communal property of the entire town.

A geofenced audio-walk with sculptural speakers. Made in collaboration with Silja Beck for "Wissen Der Stadt", a site-specific exhibition in public space, Vienna, Austria. A geofence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area. Using the app Echoes in combination with hand-made ceramic speakers we created a geofenced audio-walk in the area surrounding Paulusplatz and Landstraßer Hauptstraße in Wien. There, physical places got connected with digital sound pieces contributed by various artists through an open call. The piece consisted of 6 different ceramic speakers and latex-pouches.

Handwoven tapestry made on a homemade loom. Depicts folklore from the Danish island, Bornholm.

Tufted tapestry that also is a functional synthesizers. The sound is controlled by stroking and/or squeezing the piece.