‘Heraldry’ : Helmond : 2013 

A design for a large scale sculpture for the city of Helmond. The location was the city-square in front of the railway station, which is a busy transport intersection. In the archive of the city I came upon the ‘coat of arms of Helmond’ and found something peculiar. The arms of the city consist of a helmet with three oak branches and on one of the branches a bird is perched. Now in a coat of arms every element is supposedly meaningful, but here the bird is officially defined as a ‘medieval decoration without any specific meaning’. Quite extraordinary, and for me the trigger to make a sculpture revolving around the arms of Helmond and the bird that got away (from the burden of meaning and interpretation that is).