Posted on Saturday, March 12, 2011 by Jim Norrena
Christien Meindertsma explores the life of products and raw materials. For her first book, Checked Baggage (2004), Christien purchased a container filled with a week's worth of objects confiscated at security checkpoints in Schiphol Airport after 9/11. She meticulously categorized all 3,267 items and photographed them on a white seamless background.
Christien’s second book, PIG 05049 (2007), is an extensive collection of photographic images that documents an astounding array of products that different parts of an anonymous pig -- called 05049 -- could support. With this book, Christien reveals links between raw materials, producers, products, and consumers that have become invisible in an increasingly globalized world.
PIG 05049 won three Dutch Design awards in 2008 as well as an Index award in 2009.
With her designs, Christien Meindertsma aims to regain understanding of processes that have become distant through industrialization. Her work has been exhibited at MOMA (New York), The V&A (London), and the Cooper Hewitt Design museum (New York). Christien graduated from the Eindhoven Design Academy in 2003.