Jeroen Bisscheroux’s “POOL loss of colour” brings Tohoku swimming pool carpet art to Osaka

Dutch artist Jeroen Bisscheroux installed a brilliant swimming pool artwork in Osaka as part of the Namura Shipyard Creative Center Osaka’s artist-in-residency program.

“POOL loss of colour” was shown from March 7th to March 11th at Grand Front Osaka, and looked like a lot of fun!

This flat artwork is a large carpet, 7.5 by 15 meters in size. Its one image “unites the tsunami in Sendai and the disaster in Fukushima” on the floor. By having people play and explore the empty, discolored Tohoku swimming pool, they are re-populating the disaster zone.

The installation “brings the impact of the disaster back to human proportions; the understandable human proportions of the dimension of a swimming pool”.

Bisscheroux says:

In my artwork and as an artist I focus on concepts for public and urban space, projects with a social character are playing a major role. These concepts generate a great deal of energy and engagement from the widely diverse groups whom I’m working with.

This way I gain a sharper picture of what is happening in the society around me, how public processes evolve, how decisions are reached and what the results of these decisions are. I’m interested in all of this in order to more clearly determine my own role as artist and apply myself in relevant social contexts.

The practical limitations of art in public space are part of the creative process. The field of tension between the power of the imagination and existing rules and regulations is an interesting factor. Within the margins of what is physically or technically possible, it is the imagination that must ultimately transcend the limitations. This way, I’m trying to offer the users, participants and audiences a different, more personal reality.

My work is increasingly balanced between architecture, fine art and design.

This is how the team made the carpet artwork.

And here it is being installed in parts in the venue.

The artist and his work.