St. Jozef Wachtkamers

St. Jozef Wachtkamers (St. Joseph Waiting Rooms, 2009) by Berend Strik transforms photographs of institutional waiting rooms — spaces associated with anticipation, anxiety, and the passage of time — through his signature textile interventions.

The "waiting room" is a recurring motif in art: a liminal space between arrival and departure, hope and despair. By stitching into photographs of such spaces, Strik adds a temporal dimension — the patient, repetitive act of stitching mirrors the experience of waiting itself.

As the artist explains: "Creating since the 1980s, the artist has honed his stitching approach into a transformative expression." The labor-intensive nature of his practice — hours of handwork for each piece — connects to the themes of patience and endurance that waiting rooms embody.

The religious reference (St. Joseph — traditionally depicted as a carpenter and guardian) adds another layer: the holy family's own experience of waiting — for shelter, for deliverance — inflects the secular space of the institutional waiting room with broader spiritual resonance.

Sources: Wikipedia