Music • Images
What is nesting?
Is it the act of building a nest to provide shelter and protection?
Is it the arrangement of elements within other elements, creating structures within structures?
Or is it the act of bringing separate things together to form a larger whole?
After my mother died when I was eleven, I began creating a world of my own in my bedroom. A place where I could feel safe and at home. I gave things their own place and created an environment that felt familiar and reassuring. Having things around me in order gave me a sense of stability.
I had been interested in music from a very early age. When I was thirteen, my brother Fons gave me a DGG record of Debussy's Children's Corner.
I was fascinated not only by the music but also by the large yellow DGG logo. I admired the consistency of the design. Every record had the same look and feel. I couldn't put it into words at the time, but I could feel it.
I was particularly drawn to the narrow yellow strip along the spine with the title printed on it.
Among them were records from the cheaper DGG Début series, featuring works by composers such as Webern, Honegger, Bartók and Stravinsky, as well as the Concerto in D performed by the Amati Ensemble Berlin. I initially bought them mainly for their yellow spines. But along the way, I discovered music I might not otherwise have come across so soon.
I also read a lot of Tintin comics back then. There was a similar sense of order in the title pages and thespines of the albums. All my records had to submit to my obsessive urge to organise things. I numbered them and added coloured stickers. Partly, it was a way of creating order. But above all, I simply loved collecting. The downside was that all this 'organising' left its mark on all the record sleeves too...
under construction
And all of this is exactly what happens on this website. 🙂
Some things never change, you might think…
You may now understand why this Polaroid called Nesting, filled with other Polaroids, also reflects the website as a whole. It's like a strange book you keep leafing through, suddenly finding yourself in new chapters whose context you don't yet know.
Now could this be "The Drowning of Bart Dijkman"?
Is Bart drowning in the material of his own life, or is he just trying to bring order before he drowns in it?
Well, he seemed to have found drowning a fruitful experience early in life 😉. Guess we'll only know when his book is finished.
