10 Questions with Carla Rump

Carla Rump (NL) is a visual artist working across installation and sculpture. Her practice explores transformation, materiality, and the cyclical relationship between creation and dissolution. Drawing from natural processes and organic forms, she develops immersive, site-responsive environments that engage spatial and bodily perception. Using wood, natural skins, translucent textiles, and hand-drawn imagery, Rump creates temporary ecosystems in which fragility and resilience coexist. Extended periods working in close proximity to nature, including time in the Peruvian jungle, continue to inform her sensitivity to growth, decay, and regeneration. Central to her work is metamorphosis, biological and social, through which she traces shared processes of becoming within contemporary life. Rooted in early experiences of wandering through forests, her sculptures evoke a living, breathing landscape, seeking to reveal the hidden vitality within matter and to reconnect human experience with the rhythms of the natural world.

carlarump.nl | @carlarump

ARTIST STATEMENT

“We need the small experience to interpret the big story of life. As a child, I spent every Sunday wandering through the forest with my mother. On these journeys, I discovered a wide variety of trees, some of which quickly captured my heart. I loved the solid, impressive beech trees. As I wandered along the hiking trails, their large eyes seemed to observe me. It was like being in a fairy tale. The trees came alive. They communicated with me. While only their outlines were visible, I could feel the secrets hidden underneath their bark. I wish to expose this secret world to establish a connection between man and nature. These wooden sculptures express our human vulnerability: trees are the lungs of our existence.”

— Carla Rump

INTERVIEW

First of all, can you tell us about your artistic background and how your studies in Bologna, Antwerp, and Utrecht shaped your practice?

Looking back at my artistic background, I often see it less as a linear path and more as a long journey with many stopovers. I don’t think I consciously chose Bologna, Antwerp, and Utrecht in a very structured way; it feels more like a series of intuitively made decisions, where each place offered something I needed at that moment in my development. Each academy contributed in a very distinct way to my development, both in terms of craft and conceptual thinking.
In Antwerp, I was deeply engaged with woodcarving as a craft. I spent a lot of time carving acanthus forms, which required patience, precision, and a deep understanding of the material. It taught me to work with my hands in a very direct and dedicated way, and to respect the discipline that craftsmanship demands.
In Bologna, my focus shifted towards modelling the human figure. There, I immersed myself in working from observation, shaping form in clay. At the same time, I had a strong awareness of being surrounded by art history, almost as if I were studying within a museum. That experience gave me a sense of continuity, of being part of a much longer tradition of making.
Utrecht was where I developed a more conceptual approach. It encouraged me to reflect on what I was making and why, and to place my work within a broader context. It opened up a different way of thinking that continues to influence my practice today.
At the same time, I experience my life as a continuous journey with many in-between places. It is not so much about fixed destinations, but about moments of arrival and recognition. I sometimes think back to a moment in Barcelona, where I stepped out of the train, walked upward, and suddenly arrived at the Rambles. I remember a very clear feeling of recognition, a sense of being in the right place, without fully being able to explain why. In that sense, my education and my life are deeply intertwined: both are shaped by movement, observation, and a continuous process of becoming.

Why did you choose installation and sculpture as your primary mediums of expression?

Sculpture has always felt like the most truthful form to me. A sculpture exists in the same reality as we do; it doesn’t need translation or a screen to be experienced. You can walk around it, encounter it from different perspectives, smell it, and touch it. It asks for a physical relationship.
That directness is essential to my practice. I am interested in presence, how a work occupies space, how it meets the body of the viewer, and how it can be experienced with all the senses. Installation allows me to extend this even further, to create an environment rather than a single object, where the viewer becomes part of the work.
In an increasingly digital world, where so much of our experience is mediated and intangible, the tactile becomes more and more important to me. Working in sculpture is a way of returning to that physical connection, to materials, to space, and ultimately to ourselves.

Installation Tides (detail), Drawings, Charcoal on paper, 300 x 260 cm, 2024 - Sculptures, Ceder (wood), Different sizes, 2024 © Carla Rump

How do natural materials such as wood, stone, and textiles influence the way you develop a work?

As a child, I grew up on the edge of a forest and heathland, next to a piece of abandoned land where houses had once stood. Between the rubble, I discovered plants growing in the most unexpected ways, small flowers, resilient weeds, life finding its way through what was left behind. I collected them, made my own herbarium, and later began experimenting with edible plants, making teas, soups, and pestos. It was during that time that I realised: we are not separate from nature, we are part of it.
This early experience still shapes how I work with natural materials such as wood, stone, and textiles. I don’t see them as passive materials, but as living carriers of time, memory, and transformation. Each material asks for a different kind of attention. Wood invites me to follow its grain and history; stone requires patience and careful listening; textiles bring a sense of intimacy and connection to the body.
When I develop a work, I begin from this understanding of interconnectedness. Rather than imposing a fixed idea, I allow the material to guide the process. The work grows through interaction, through touch, observation, and response. In that sense, my practice is not about shaping nature, but about meeting it.

Can you describe your creative process from the initial idea to the final installation?

My process almost always begins with clay. It is a soft, plastic mass that allows me to think through my hands. I use it to translate what I imagine into something tangible, even if that first translation is still very intuitive and unfinished.
From there, I make small sketches or maquettes. These are like testing grounds, a way to understand balance, tension, and presence. I believe that what works on a small scale can also exist in a larger form, but the translation is never literal. When a work grows, it changes.
In fact, the final piece is almost never what I had in mind at the beginning, and rarely what the sketch suggested. The process is one of constant negotiation between the idea, the material, and the scale. Something shifts along the way, sometimes subtly, sometimes completely, and I follow that movement rather than trying to control it. For me, the work emerges through making. It is less about executing an idea and more about discovering what the work wants to become.

Metamorphosis, Studio Installation © Carla Rump

In your work, transformation and metamorphosis appear as central themes. What draws you to these ideas?

I am drawn to transformation because it offers a way to meet the harshness of the world with beauty. Metamorphosis holds a sense of hope, the idea that something can change, evolve, and become. I often think of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, or how a species like the European peacock butterfly depends on the stinging nettle, a plant many people avoid, to develop into something strikingly beautiful. That contrast moves me deeply.
It reminds me that what may seem rough, unwanted, or even painful can be essential for growth and transformation. Holding on to that sense of hope, in whatever form it takes, is something I return to again and again in my work.

In your work, transformation and metamorphosis appear as central themes. What draws you to these ideas?

Working in close proximity to nature, especially during my time in the Peruvian jungle, has had a profound impact on my artistic vision. What struck me most there was the overwhelming intensity and density of life. It is a place where growth, decay, and transformation are constantly happening, almost simultaneously, and at a pace that feels both accelerated and timeless.
I became particularly fascinated by the idea that in the jungle, you can experience what feels like four seasons at once. There are elements of birth, flowering, decay, and regeneration all coexisting within the same moment and space. This stands in strong contrast to my life in the Netherlands, where time and transformation are structured more linearly through the changing seasons. There, you move from one phase to another, but in the jungle, everything seems to unfold at the same time. This experience deeply influenced how I think about transformation in my work. It shifted my focus from a sequential understanding of change to a more layered and simultaneous one. In my installations and drawings, I try to evoke this sense of coexistence where different stages of growth and decay overlap, and where boundaries between beginning and end become less defined. The jungle made me more aware of the invisible processes that are always at work, even when something appears still. It reinforced my fascination with the in-between state from one fixed point to another, but as a continuous, dynamic field of becoming.

Your projects often create immersive environments. How do you want viewers to physically or emotionally experience your installations?

I find this a difficult question to answer, because I believe the experience ultimately belongs to the viewer. I don’t want to dictate what someone should feel or think when encountering my work.
What I do hope is that the work can be experienced on a more atmospheric or sensory level, something that is perhaps not immediately understood, but felt. If it raises questions or creates a moment of stillness or curiosity, then the work begins to open itself. Physically, I appreciate it when people take the time to move around the installation. My works are not meant to be seen from a single fixed point; they reveal themselves gradually through movement, through proximity and distance. For me, each work contains something very personal; I almost like placing a fragment of my inner world into space. That is why I feel genuinely honoured when someone chooses to slow down, spend time with it, and engage with it in their own way.

Standing with the elements, Segoya, 400 x 150 cm, 2020 © Carla Rump

How has the public responded to your works installed in public spaces?

One of the most memorable responses I experienced was during the installation of my sculpture Kameleon in Rotterdam. The work, carved by hand from Belgian bluestone and consisting of two parts, immediately drew attention from passersby. People were genuinely surprised and even a bit disbelieving. They stop and ask, “Is this real? Is this really for our neighbourhood?” There was a sense of wonder, almost disbelief, that something so carefully made and materially solid was being placed in their everyday environment.
What touched me most was their sense of pride. They expressed appreciation that public funding had been used to create something unique and handcrafted, something that didn’t feel distant or anonymous. Many of them couldn’t believe it was actually carved from real stone. People also wanted to take photos with the sculpture, often placing themselves in the frame as if it had already become part of their surroundings. At one point, someone even asked me to take a photo of them with the work. They didn’t realise I was the artist, which created a very interesting moment of distance and closeness at the same time; I was both observer and maker within that same encounter. That moment stayed with me because it showed how art in public space can create a direct and meaningful connection. It can surprise people, invite curiosity, and even foster a sense of ownership and pride within a community. Art is communication.

Residencies seem to play an important role in your practice. How does changing location influence each new project?

Residencies are important in my practice because they temporarily remove me from familiar routines and ways of seeing. When I change location, my attention sharpens. I start to observe much more closely the landscape, the light, and the materials that are present in that specific place. I don’t begin a residency with a fixed plan. Instead, I allow the environment to influence the direction of the work. Each place has its own rhythm and visual language. Sometimes it is the vegetation, sometimes the architecture, sometimes even the atmosphere of time passing in a different way.
What I find valuable is that I become more receptive. I collect impressions in a very open way, like sketches, fragments, materials, without immediately knowing how they will translate into a work. Only later, in the studio, do these elements start to connect and form a direction. In that sense, each residency creates a shift in perspective. It disrupts habitual thinking and allows new associations to emerge. My work becomes a response to that specific environment, but always filtered through my ongoing fascination with transformation and organic change.

Circle of Becoming, Wood, 135x40 cm, 2024 © Carla Rump

Lastly, what directions or future projects are you currently exploring, and how do you see your practice evolving in the coming year

At the moment, I am interested in working more with smaller-scale sketches again. Returning to that more immediate, intuitive way of drawing feels important to me, as it allows ideas to emerge more freely and quickly, without immediately committing to material or scale.
At the same time, I am also thinking practically about how my sculptural work can become more mobile and easier to transport. Because many of my works are material-heavy and physically demanding, finding ways to make them more flexible in terms of handling and presentation is becoming increasingly relevant in my practice.
Another focus is finding a more permanent and meaningful context for some of my existing works, such as my elfenbankjes sculpture. I would like to find a final place where it can really settle and be experienced in a lasting way, almost as if the work completes a cycle by finding its home.
In addition, I am exploring the possibility of translating some of my wooden sculptures into bronze. This shift in material would allow certain forms to be preserved over time, while also giving them a different kind of presence and durability. It is interesting for me to think about how a form can change meaning through a change in material, while still retaining its essence.
Overall, I see my practice evolving in a way that balances material research and spatial installations with a return to drawing and sketching as a starting point. I am interested in keeping the process open, while also becoming more aware of the life cycle of the works themselves, from idea to making, to placement in the world. In that sense, I feel I am gradually developing my own kind of cycle, like a personal “circulation” of ideas, materials, and forms that continuously transform and return in different stages.

Artist’s Talk

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