Thunder Knights | ZIP, Groningen
01.11.2020 / 28.02.2021
A fictional shop for knight equipment in a empty building during the Corona pandemic. The assignment was to create an art application for the windows of Waagstraat 9 in Groningen. The building was vacant, and the request from Job was to design a window painting to disguise the emptiness.
In the fall of 2019 Bart Nijstad took a study trip to New York. “At the American Museum of Natural History, I visited an exhibition on knight armor and various weapons from that era. After the visit, I created several drawings of knights in armor. The drawings have a naïve style and, in my view, reference science fiction films and comics. Whenever I receive an assignment, I like to flip through my sketchbooks for inspiration. In this case, I came across the knight drawings and felt they fit well with both the current zeitgeist and the location. At that time, I was particularly fascinated by the theme of knights because of its connection to protective clothing, which had become especially relevant during the pandemic. This led to the idea of creating a fictional shop for knight equipment as a playful way to subtly raise awareness among shoppers about the importance of protective measures, such as wearing a face mask”.
