(English version below) 04-06-2025: Makers Rami Alshilli, Chris Visser en Alied van der Meer hebben ongeveer drie weken geresideerd in De Ruimte. Tijdens hun residentie hebben zij van De Ruimte gebruik gemaakt om onderzoek te doen naar, en aan de slag te gaan met nieuw werk. Vlak voor het einde van de residentie gaan we in gesprek met Rami over hoe hij zijn residentie heeft ervaren. Wegens de spreektaal van Rami is onderstaand interview in het Engels. Wil je meer beeld bij het verhaal? Check dan @deruimtedeventer op Instagram.
Artists Rami Alshilli, Chris Visser, and Alied van der Meer spent approximately three weeks in residence at De Ruimte. During their residency, they used the space to conduct research and work on new projects. Just before the end of the residency, we sat down with Rami to talk about how he experienced his time at De Ruimte. As Rami’s preferred spoken language is English, the interview below is conducted in English. Want to see more of their story? Check out @deruimtedeventer on Instagram.
Can you introduce yourself?
“I am Rami Alshilli, I’ve been living in Deventer for two years now and I’m a Syrian visual artist, originally trained in painting and ceramic design. Over the years, my practice has evolved into a more tactile and process oriented approach.”
What is it that you make?
“I’m working with clay, in particular I’m experimenting with paper clay and I’m exploring its limits and fragility. My work is mostly not about form, it’s also about presence. I’m very interested in the dialogue between the structure and the silence and how materials can carry memories or how things can hold emotions.”
How did you come to this particular subject?
“I did my masters in Hungary and during my studying I was introduced to paper clay. I was drawn to this combination between paper and clay and back then I used to make my own mix of clay and paper together. After that I just started playing with it, it just took all of my attention, I was quite into it.” [Laughs]
What is it that makes it so special?
“Paper clay is more fragile. You can feel its fragility and it’s challenging to work with. I always try to take it to the highest limits, sometimes I cross those limits but it’s all about experimenting.”
What happens when you cross those limits?
“Well, sometimes I succeed and sometimes I need to start all over again.” [Laughs]
Is it a series or is it a solo work?
“Well, for me it is a series. Or let’s say that for me, it is more like theory. Once I start it is continuing, evolving and developing. I also exhibited my work last year in the Bergkerk and I am looking forward to continuing exhibiting my work in many different places. Not only in Deventer, but all over the Netherlands.”
Why did you want to do a residency in De Ruimte?
“I was searching for a space that invites process, not just outcomes. De Ruimte offered this openness so I had to apply.”
Do you have your own workspace?
“I don’t have a dedicated workspace at the moment, but I hope to have one in the near future where I can fully focus on creating and developing my ideas. For now, I often work from home, using my room as a temporary studio. I’m also part of a supportive network of artist friends and when I need to fire my pieces, I ask if I can use their kilns, and they’re thankfully generous and open to sharing. A good example of this kind of creative exchange is my current collaboration with Chris Visser at Kunst Werkt on Nieuwstraat. It’s a vibrant and inspiring environment, and being there reminds me of the value of working within a community.”
How did you approach your work in De Ruimte ?
“Well, my main drives are trust and stillness and trusting in the process. I try to be honest with my work and I took the risk to discover and to explore the materials I’m working with. Of course it’s challenging once you take those risks because you know that there is a big possibility that you need to start all over again. But for me, I didn’t mind. De Ruimte is an open space to try most possibilities and to develop a new way of thinking. I built a new body of work that embraces this incompleteness.”
What does that mean?
“Well, I was thinking, usually when I start producing or working with clay, without me noticing, I feel like I’m making so many results. I make these pieces that make new pieces and then I move to the next ones. Sometimes you forget about the process itself and here I realized that the process is even more important than the outcomes. That’s when I started feeling like sometimes you need to slow down and focus on the process instead of being busy with the results.”
How are you going to make this process visible in what you’re making? I mean how do you finish something that is meant to be incomplete? Is there a finish?
“For me, the process itself is the heart of the artwork, like a living story unfolding in real time. Since my work often embraces incompleteness, I don’t see ‘finish’ as a final endpoint but more like a pause or a moment of reflection within an ongoing journey. The traces of my hands, the fingerprints in the clay, the textures left behind, they all carry the energy of becoming, of something still evolving.”
“I make the process visible by letting the work hold its own memory, its history of making, inviting viewers to feel the layers of time and transformation embedded in it. The ‘finish’ is not a closure but an opening, a space for imagination and connection that keeps the piece alive beyond the studio. So, the artwork never truly ‘ends’, it simply breathes differently depending on who encounters it, when, and how.”
You also said your drives are stillness and trust, what do you mean by that?
“Sometimes when you are an artist, you are busy with the work. You are always doubting if it’s going to work well or not. You are busy with the idea of proving that you will have an outcome. For me, during my period here in De Ruimte, I was more busy with the process than the outcome. I was more focused on uncovering rather than producing. That for me is a kind of trust.”
“And the stillness, in De Ruimte for example, it’s quite a big space and I spend hours just in silence and looking at how the stillness can affect you, how it starts as a trigger for your thoughts to evolve and to grow.”
Is the stillness in De Ruimte different from the stillness you are used to in your normal work space?
“It’s quite different from the stillness in my home because my home is my comfort zone. This is a totally new space for me that always makes you think about what’s coming, what ideas will you have and how will it go? How will you apply the idea to more like a practical, visible, entity? “
You also decided to share De Ruimte, can you tell me more about who you shared it with and why?
“Yes, once I was granted to be in De Ruimte I was thinking about sharing the space with other creative people. So I invited an artist who is also working with ceramics, Chris Visser, and then she also invited her friend Alied van der Meer, and I was so open to that. It was really nice to be surrounded by creative minds. It sparked unexpected conversations and perspectives.”
What made this residency special? You’re in the middle of Deventer, did that help you with your creative process?
“Being in the middle of Deventer, well of course I’ve been living in Deventer for two years now, but I’ve experimented with people passing by, looking at them and seeing that they were curious about the work. Sometimes they take a look or even ask to come in and then for me, I’m always interested in how people react to my work. The first glance when they look at the work, you know, it can always tell so many things, it’s just fascinating.”
Did you have any interesting reactions while you were here?
“Yes, you know, you as an artist, when you are busy building something and then another person drops by and looks and then you hear their impression and how they experience your work. Those results are always fascinating, people interpret the work in their own way, based on their memories, based on their unconsciousness and feelings and for me, it’s always something to add, that life is full of different perspectives and views.”
Did you achieve what you wanted to achieve during your residency?
“I think so, yes, I achieved what I wanted to achieve during the residency. At the beginning, it felt a bit uncertain, especially when you are always overwhelmed with having to create and busy with the result. And, as I said, here I came to the fact that I need to focus more on the process rather on the result. And I think I achieved that. But I’m also still busy with that.”
So what’s next? How are you going to use what you learned here in the future?
“I think I’m going to tell myself to always slow down. Take it easy, no need to rush and just enjoy the process.”
What are you going to do with the work that you’ve created here?
“I will keep developing my work and keep merging my ideas in a way that can tell the story to the people. And I will probably be exhibiting here in Deventer and then maybe in other places.”
Do you have any tips for future residents?
“What I would recommend for the future residents is to try not to be busy with proving anything. Just focus on the process and try to enjoy it. Also try to take walks around De Ruimte, because surroundings can speak and can tell a lot of things to you and can be a source of inspiration.”
Anything in here that particularly inspired you?
“Yes, the emptiness and silence, or maybe the absence of things.” [Laughs]
Is there a place where people can check out your work?
“All of my updates I will be publishing on my Instagram page @alshilli_ceramics”
Rami, Chris, and Alied were the ninth of twelve residences we are organizing at De Ruimte in 2025. In addition to providing a physical space, we also offer our residents online visibility. Want to stay updated on the residencies? Or do you want to see more of their story? Then check out @deruimtedeventer on Instagram!
Written by: Niek van Steen
