Guda Koster

Her works are simple and don’t pretend to be anything more than 
variations on fashion, interior design and architecture, although there’s often a surprising twist in the function of these ‘familiar objects’.

Her starting-point is the reality of our everyday lives, but she tries to show our daily routine, surroundings and circumstances in a new and surprising perspective. She doesn’t take ‘the ordinary’ for granted. Her works are no critique of the clichés, dullness and boredom of ordinary lives, but she’s, on the contrary, looking for an optimistic and fresh perspective on reality.

An example of her work is ‘Life is bitter, life is sweet’; a work made for the glass showcase in a tunnel for pedestrians in Amsterdam. The tunnel is a gloomy place. The work consists of pink
baroque-like curtains and dark red carpet. There is a big contrast between the dark and unpleasant concrete tunnel and the cosiness created by Koster within the showcase. Since there is glass on both sides of the showcase and you can pass it on both sides, it becomes unclear whether the spectator is looking out of or looking into someone’s home.
 
In her project ‘greetings from Delft’ Guda Kosters cooperated with a group of about sixty women with various ethnical backgrounds.
The women made a collection of new costumes from second-hand clothes and used textiles. The costumes were based on traditional
costumes from different cultures all over the world. The costumes are like the traditional dresses and costumes they’re inspired on, but were at the same time made from disposed of average European confection clothing.
The women were then photographed, wearing their self-made costumes on various locations in their hometown Delft. The photographs were bundled in the postcard book ‘Greetings from Delft’.

Guda Kosters works functions in the world of today and stands firmly on the ground. Through her concrete and precise interventions in reality she comments on society in an equally critical as positive way.