Research: A High-Art/Low-Art Ecosystem
Art, Market Value, and the Artist-as-Brand
Wil je graag meer weten over Blind Crush?
Ik vertel je er graag meer over op mijn crowdfund pagina. Daar vertel ik waarom ik kunst maak voor mensen met een visuele beperking. Hier leg ik alleen uit waarom dat perse een merknaam moet hebben, maar dat is saaie en taaie theorie voor filosofische nerds...
Instagram: BlindCrush & DripstoneDwellers
The Core Research Question
In my ongoing research into capitalism as a belief system, I explore a question that keeps returning to me:
Who am I in a world where the market decides my value?
To investigate this, I present myself not only as an artist, but as a brand with two “subsidiaries”:
Blind Crush and Dripstone Dwellers.
Both produce tactile art objects, yet each approaches touch, intimacy, and accessibility from a different angle.
By working through the logic of branding, I examine the shifting position of the artist today.
- Should the artist behave like a brand?
- Does the personality of the maker still matter?
- Or has the brand become the true author?
These questions form the foundation of the research you’ll find on this page.
Blind Crush: Rethinking How We Experience Art
Museums are built for looking. But for people with visual impairments, the traditional museum experience offers very little. Walking through a gallery often means hearing others describe what hangs on the walls. If touching the artwork is allowed, it is typically only under supervision, while wearing cotton gloves, and is generally prohibited.
Blind Crush responds to this gap. I develop tactile artworks designed to be explored by hand, inviting touch rather than prohibiting it.
This project asks what happens when we shift the hierarchy of the senses. What if touch becomes the primary way of encountering art? What new forms of meaning, intimacy, and authorship emerge?
On this page, I share updates on the development of these tactile pieces. Ultimately, Blind Crush will become a webshop where anyone can purchase tactile art without assistance.
Crush the rules. Touch the art.
Dripstone Dwellers: From Cave to Crave
Dripstone Dwellers stems from a desire to explore how tactile sculpture can support pleasure, embodiment, and personal connection in all their diverse forms. The project originated in conversations around people whose genital anatomy has been altered through medical interventions such as cancer treatment or reconstructive surgery. These experiences can reshape a person’s relationship with their body, but they do not diminish the possibility of intimacy, creativity, or joy.
As the project evolved, its focus expanded. Dripstone Dwellers now investigates how sculptural objects, shaped by texture, geology, and transformation, can invite anyone to reimagine touch, desire, and bodily autonomy. People with conventionally shaped anatomy are equally welcome to explore these pieces and discover new sensory possibilities.
Each handmade object is linked to the fictional world of Dripstone, a place inhabited by creatures formed through slow geological processes and guided by the mythical “Mayor Stone Eater.” This narrative layer offers a playful, approachable way to engage with topics that are often surrounded by silence or discomfort.
Dripstone Dwellers invites viewers and users to imagine new forms of intimacy, new shapes of desire, and new relationships with their own bodies, whether changed, changing, or simply curious.
Crush the rules. Touch the art.
Why Blind Crush and Dripstone Dwellers Exist Side by Side
Although Blind Crush and Dripstone Dwellers appear to inhabit very different worlds, one focused on accessibility, the other on sexual wellbeing, they share a compelling foundation that invites reflection on societal questions.
Both projects:
- challenge the dominance of vision in art and culture
- explore touch as a form of knowledge
- question how value is assigned to bodies, objects, and identities
- examine the artist’s shifting role within a market-driven society
- use tactility as a tool for empowerment, agency, and pleasure
- Both products are cast in moulds using 21st-century materials
- Both products are produced in limited editions, as customary within the art world.
Together, they form a single research trajectory:
What does it mean to create art in a world where branding, identity, and market value are deeply intertwined?
This page will continue to grow as the research evolves. The upcoming webshop will feature limited-edition pieces from both collections, offering collectors and enthusiasts a unique opportunityto engage directly with the projects’ themes and purchase exclusive works.
Want to see how the work really happens? I share sketches, decisions, and the messy middle on WhatsApp. Tap the button and step inside the studio.
Get in touch
If you feel a connection to my work, I’d love to hear from you. Reach out to collaborate, invite me, or start a conversation.
+31 (0) 6 22 15 72 83
info ∞ sic.co.nl