Kaspar Hamacher - The object becomes.

WHAT IS WOOD?
Wood is like an old bone from ancient creatures. I use the material to make something beautiful: metaphorical objects that touch the soul.

What is a tree?
A tree is a living organism. The books of Peter Wohlleben changed my mindset: a living tree is connected to everything, also to us as human beings. 

Why do you work with dead trees?
For many reasons. First of all, it's a matter of respect: it makes no sense to cut a living tree because there are so many leftovers, so many dead trees all around … But it's also necessary to work with dead wood to make interior furniture so that the wood isn’t full of water and humidity. Dead wood is like a bone; its beauty immediately suggests the shape and how I can form it.

Could you talk about the way you started your practice in 2008?
My practice started much earlier, in my childhood. I keep an image in my mind: taking an old root from a tree in the forest. I brush it and then I sculpt little figures. My passion for working with the material started with my life in the forest. And then I grew up and I went to the Rudolf Steiner School where I continued to work with wood. Later, during my studies at the art academy, I was obliged to do research in a wider field. But after that, I came back to wood and I started my career in 2008. Step-by-step, growing every year, a bit like a tree.

Have you observed an evolution in the forests around you?
We used to live in a forest - my father is a forester – in this area. When I was young, there weren’t so many trees around. They were all cut, and then they planted new trees, and now when I go there for a walk, I see that the forest has changed completely.

How do you imagine your practice in ten years?
I always wanted to go to Japan once to spread my wings a little bit, but I knew that since I was born here I wanted to be here in a way. That's also why I've tried to work in Brussels, in Maastricht, but that's not possible to me, because I need my surroundings. I need the people connected to me here in this area, people from the forest that know where a tree has fallen, or something else. There are no traffic jams here; it's calm, which is great because I'm not really calm inside…

How does your work deal with the human scale? Why did you decide to work on such a big scale?
I'm always thinking about scale. In a collection called Monoliten, there are small and bigger pieces and one is bigger than a human being. It's stronger, it's more beautiful. It's like a metaphor: the scale has to be bigger than humans. Humans without nature isn't possible, but nature without humans is possible.

What about man-made forests?
Planting trees means that they aren’t grown in this place directly. When you plant a tree, the trees have been cut at their roots, and those little roots are the most important thing for the trees to connect with other trees … Well, this isn’t really my field. My field is more to give it a symbol, to create objects that you can think about, that lead you to think about nature, or humans and nature.

With my last work, I think I went too far: I created a sphere, and I feel really bad about cutting this beautiful form, the ultimate form. The wood was really expensive. It was heavy work to bring it to the machine and make a sphere out of it. It was a fantastic ball, a beautiful piece. Then I burned it. But I burned it because it's a symbol, it's a metaphor – we’re burning the planet.

What is the function of those spheres?
This ball is an object without a real function. The function is to keep you thinking or maybe to start a thinking process. The first time I looked at it in my atelier, I thought: wow, it means something to me, a feeling; maybe this is its function. You can put a glass on it, you can maybe sit on it, or you can roll it, but it's not about the function, it's an impressive feeling that it gives you … and I don't know why. And this 'why I don't know' is really important too: 'why I don't know' but I feel it. And this is the most important thing also for humans in their relationship with nature. I think humans have to be more concerned about their feelings, and not just about knowledge.

And when you look up at the stars, there's a big thing called the Moon… Now they're flying to Mars, to the Moon, searching for a new planet… yes…Once my father came here and said 'Kaspar, have you seen the first picture of Mars? They landed a robot … Do you know what I think? I think I've seen this before.'
I thought maybe we are from Mars. In the beginning, we went to Earth and now we are searching again for something new, maybe, I don't' know. Sometimes we just have these feelings, and that says enough…