In April 2013 the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam launched an interactive online platform called Rijksstudio, making available 125.000 works of its collection and inviting everyone to use those ultra high-resolution images on creative projects of their own. An unprecedented gesture, since this is the first time such a thing happens in the history of museums.
Amazed and excited I found myself feeling the immediate need to respond to a challenge so generously put before my eyes.
And I began to transform the images as if I was playing with them. In 2014 I downloaded the first image. I remember it well: Girl in a Blue Dress, by Jan Verspronck. I immediately started the process of altering it. How I enjoyed it! And how I like the possibility of touching and changing what was once presented as finished and untouchable. How I like to get away from logic and reason. How good it is to look again and see in a different way. How I like to wander through the mind, to go to sleep with an idea, forget all about it and wake up for a new dream of possible combinations. To fly tirelessly, to get rid of the boredom of everyday, of the same lunches, dinners and snacks, of the physical needs of the hurt body… Oh, how I like to wander around, to challenge the monotony of my daily life, with its stupid routines that freeze my movement…
In the meantime I did other things and the images of that first attempt were left asleep. Two years went by…
And so it happens that I broke my knee, the head of the fibula and some other stupid bone, so I was immobilized, doing almost nothing for months. What a bore! The pain was not in the leg nor the bones, it only hurt my patience, being there, seated, stuck, waiting for the time I could walk around again. The only thing I could do was to return to the tight and unshakable position of the computer and get back to the unfinished project. I sat at the desk, leg stretched and high because of the swelling and developed the transformations I had started. The doctor did not remember to prescribe me this. I discovered it alone and thought: a blessing in disguise.
I forgot about the knee, the head of the fibula, the physiotherapist’s recommendations and the bores of my physical condition and continued focused on this project, everyday improving, step by step. And with the time I liked it better and better. The good it did to my leg! You can’t imagine how. My nerves became stronger, the pain started to fade away and I was back to the pleasure of work on images I had left asleep.
I really felt the urge to show the result! Here it is. Not mine but…
Cristina H Melo
