Freedom / Vulnerability, 2012

A marriage between Christian Albert Lucien van der Kaap, born 25.04.2989 in Enschede and Marina Elenskaya, 07/16/1983 born in Krasnodar, Russia in the English Reformed Church of the Begijnhof in Amsterdam 11.00 gather, 11.30 service

Making public that I was going to marry my girlfriend, people in my surrounding responded to telling us they wanted to be a part of it. A strange reaction in our opinion, because isn't marriage usually a bond between two people? Is the public present not merely a witness and apart from that share no active role in this. Why then their spontaneous reaction? I can only say how much I appreciate it and how it has inspired me as an artist to look at what this commitment means. How can our intimate promise inspire a community?

The 5th of may, Dutch liberation day it will be about belonging. Behind the busy Spui square, we will join in the Begijnhof to gather in silence. We let others speak, present and play to help us shape our intimate bond. It’s about freedom and vulnerability.

With: Margriet van der Kooi, Rory Pilgrim, UNDA foundation, Raphael Langmaier, Elsbeth Ciesluk, Isfrid Angard Siljehaug, and others

Pure M, 2010

Pure M, 2010 (carved out chocolate letter 'M'  presented in box)

as a gift for Marina Elenskaya

My name is mine, 2009

ENSCHEDE – From being to becoming. About an act of necessity. About poverty and boredom but most of all about myself and what I don't understand. That one little less lonely day I purposefully vandalized the garage doors of my neighbours. On five of seven doors, which ungracious letters I had written my name since I could not find another word with meaning.

What while writing on every single door something in me changed. The very first letters being drawn were a little small but in a few strokes became bigger, abitious, blind and wild. Till I reached the fith and not the last door and atopped. When out of breath and with pain in my chest I realized the irrversibillity of my actions.

The meaning of my name is the consequence of my name. Thats why the neighbours hadn't take long to approve someone guilty. But see also that I was the first expression where I had shown myself five times larger than myself.

It was as if I had given away my name, for it to become something vulgar and hard and it resembled creases more than sings. And so I was confronted for the very first time with the temporality and value of art when my parents received the bill for repainting the garage doors.

And I do not now if I held myself responsible because I was convinced I was totally alone. Strangely capable of looking at myself with the nakedness of an object. That is my name.