Sheep in the City was an art project from The Soft World feltstudio from feltdesigner Beatrice Waanders and her team in Rotterdam. The artpiece is a 70 meters long and 6 meters bespoke piece hang 50 meters in the air in the atrium of the townhall in The Hague (The Netherlands) a building from architect Richard Meijer. There was never before nor after, an artwork as big and high in the building.
The artpiece is huge but light, white and transparant like the building itself. Where the building is in clear regular lines and made from hard cool materials, the artpiece makes a communicating yet opposite soft, natural and gentle statement itself.
The artwork is made from the pure undyed wool of the sheepflock of Judith Prins, who is in order of Dunea and the city council herding her sheep at the Meijendel nature reservate in the dunes of The Hague to grasses away all the overgrowing hawthorn plants activated by the industry pollution around The Hague and smothering other less strong fauna. The Hague sheepflock provides the primitive Dutch breed Drenthe Heathsheep (Drents Heideschaap) like other Dutch western dune area nowadays do, as they are used to the poor sand grounds.
In combination with organice undyed cotton, without sewing or sticking we have felted in the wool just by the natural felting process, all by hand without chemicals, just with water and soap.
On the ground there was the iconic Dutch sofa from Martin Visser wrapped in raw wool and a XL carpet, where visitors could site down and feel the effect of the wool themselves, watching on a tv a film about the work of the sheepflock as well as about the feltingprocess of the artpiece.
With the art-installation ‘Sheep in the City’ Beatrice Waanders brings nature to the city and hopes to get city-people inspired to go to nature, and become aware of the beautiful landscape of natural dunes with this very special sheepflock, discovering and appreciate this wonderful natural hermitage so nearby their own city.
