David Veldhoen is a sculptor, an architectural designer and an activist. After his studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, he experimented with film. Pompeii Now unfolds the making of his contemporary Pompeian collection in a road trip, was directed by Otakar Votocek and featured on Dutch national TV. Forever frozen in time, the petrified images of sudden annihilation in Pompeii parallel(ed) the threat of a nuclear strike and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD still reflects our dependence on nature.
Veldhoen experienced the contrast of living in the bustling metropolis New York and the more traditional, natural way of life in Samoa, Polynesia. This deepened his awareness of the self-correcting powers of nature opposed to the fragility of human life. We are all, so to speak, ‘dancing on the volcano’. After a series of sculptures that evolve around this precarious human condition, the concept of petrification returned in the 900 ‘frozen images’ in his artificial island Tertulia and other architectural proposals; materialized ideas - written in stone.
Mixing the rhythms of different disciplines and scales, Veldhoen frames nature in a human context and confronts us with our position, addressing our ecological as well as our social impact.
28 March 1957, Amsterdam
Gerrit Rietveld Academy: painting and sculpture
Visual artist and designer since 1979
Lives and works in Amsterdam
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a selection of projects:
2026 - 2023 ‘Tipping points’, Artist in residence, Rijkswaterstaat (strategische verkenningen). Three concepts concerning climate adaptation: ‘Amfibium’ (Sea), ‘Fluctoforum’ (water) and ‘Habiversum’ (Land). These concepts -not designs!- seek to make the abstract facts of the rising sealevel, climate change and the loss of biodiversity tangible by confrontation; The magazine FORUM (architectura et amiciticae) focuses on spaces within the home, such as the living room or bedroom and this time turns its attention to the attic
2022 - 2019 'Laboratidal II, Exhibition Cityscapes Gallery: ', Amsterdam. Gravity forces a roof positioned inside a tidal machine, through specially developed mechanics to rise to three times the height of the tidal difference above the water; 'Laboratidal I' for exhibition ‘Octopus’s Garden in the Vishal, objects placed at scale inside a tidal machine referring to gravity, the force that because of Newtons- and Einsteins is mathematically explicable but as an invisible emerging henomenon yet on a metaphysical level a mystery
2019 - 2017 ’Syzygy’, light object; Lectures for Academy of Architecture, Amsterdam on Ratio/ Proportions; 'I Amsterdam’, visual comment on extreme tourism in Amsterdam; Since 2017 Veldhoen works on ’Sub~tide’, a transdisciplinary project and follow up of the Melarium that blends art, architecture and science and is set in a (post)European context, proposing alterative proportions between man and nature, specifically the sea
2016 - 2012 'Melarium' (honey house); Green capital; think-model for the Zuidas; Guest-teacher Gerrit Rietveld Academy architectural design; Jagtlust, design for the castle-garden of Jan Six; ‘Pangean Pulses', design for a bean garden, castle of Chaumont, France; ‘Table plan’, a social sculpture; ‘Diogenes’ idea-contest for Who Cares; Sabbatical (2015-2016)
2011 - 2006 ‘Wishful Thinking’ a floating sculture; ‘A Venue’, a temporary site specific project for a fly-over, close to the Coentunnel, Amsterdam; solo-exhibition Sue Biederberg Gallery; ‘Weight of Thoughts’ sculpture; 'Origin’, a proposal for the visitors centre at Oostvaarders Plassen, Flevopolder
2005 - 2001 Advisor for the Amsterdam Fund of the Arts (AFK), IJ-oevers (harbour area) and adviser for the council (stadsdeel) of Amsterdam North; 'Vortex', sculpture for the Province House of Drenthe
2000 - 1997 'Tertulia’, site specific art for Kattenbroek; ‘Rare Citizens’, site specific art for the city council of Pijnacker; guest teaching for the Sydney College of the Arts, Australia; adviser site specific arts, council of Hoorn; Final design for the ‘Hygiëaplein’, a square in Amsterdam, exposed in the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam
1994 - 1991 Proposal for the (polluted) Griftpark, OVT Municipal Museum of Utrecht; Final design for an open air theatre close to the Dom-tower, Municipial School for Music, Utrecht
1990 - 1985 Music projects Eidophone, Windharp for the Holland Festival, IJsbreker, Amsterdam and the Municipial museum of Arnhem; ‘Orion’, utopian design for a floating island; Sculptures purchased by ABNAMRO collection and others; Painting 'Schutterstuk’ purchased by the Amsterdam Museum
1981 - 1984 Paintings and sculptures; Docu-drama ‘Pompeii Now’; movie for Dutch TV (Italy, VPRO); Government grant/ visiting Western Samoa and New York; Final design for a Bijlmermeer Drive Inn theatre, commission Praktijkbureau Visual Arts; sculpture ‘Mankind’, purchased by the Municipial museum of Arnhem; sculptures exposed at artcentre Aorta, Amsterdam
1979 - 1981 Starts Art Gallery AMOK with Peter Giele; exhibition of sculptures at former Gallery Sothmann, Amsterdam
