Timo Demollin

The works presented during Open Studios 2023 shed light on privatisation and market-oriented reforms in the Dutch railway sector and airline industry since 1988—a period defined by competing ideals, such as profit maximisation and social function, free market and state aid, and economic and ecological concerns. These dualisms outline a protracted struggle that continues to this day, as evidenced by recent labour disputes and strikes. A video work assembles 35 years of media discourse through sampling public broadcasting footage, while repurposed industrial materials form witness and testimony to these developments. An aircraft cargo lock replaces the studio door fittings, railway junction boxes connect to lighting, and elsewhere in the Rijksakademie building, steel train equipment has been welded to the guardrail facing the Strategy and Development office. Linking these disparate functions, the artist invites viewers to navigate their subject positions in relation to the conditions of ownership, usership, labour and leisure, which together determine access to both mobility and artistic infrastructure.