Feel the surface of raw cardboard between your fingers or hold a sheet of unprocessed white paper up to the light and see its grain and fibres. You are looking at the beauty and simplicity of these materials. Basic, pure and understated, and at the same time materials that have inspired visual artists and designers for decades. In the hands of the artist paper and cardboard take on new shapes and forms that tell stories; stories that move, amaze and surprise us through the monumental and imposing nature of the artwork or because of the tactile and detailed quality of the work. CODA Museum Apeldoorn brings together the works of 22 artists from the Netherlands and abroad in the eleventh edition of CODA Paper Art, which takes place from 11 June to 12 November 2023.

Majda Vidakovic (b. Serbia, 1990) focuses on objects and spaces in which the past plays an important role, and has an enduring fascination with the traces and remains that people leave behind. At the beginning of the Covid pandemic, she noticed that many people threw things away and acquired new ones while confined to their homes. She saw this as emblematic of lockdown: consuming while imprisoned in a ‘box’. Vidakovic collected boxes and other packaging and turned it into sculptures. Her choice of objects symbolises the past, which she is rediscovering and giving a second chance. She sees a direct connection with her native Serbia, a country left over from the former Yugoslavia. The latter nation no longer exists, but lives on in memories, monuments, objects, and architecture. Vidakovic has made a series of large totems for CODA Paper Art, using more than a hundred cardboard pulp containers. The work is reminiscent of a ruin, or an archaeology museum display. It questions whether these remains can be glued back together, and whether this reconstruction gives them a new importance.