Thomas Spijkerman | De Lege Winkel (The Empty Store)

Thomas Spijkerman, Director of finished Temporary Programme Reinventing Daily Life (2016-2018), initiated project / pop-up shop De Lege Winkel (The Empty Shop) on a busy Amsterdam street in May 2018.

“I’ve always wanted to start a store that provides emptiness to the people as a goal unto itself. It’s important when people come in, that [they understand] it’s not an art project. It’s a sincere attempt to sell emptiness and find the value in emptiness.”

“Depending on whatever the person brought in,” adds Spijkerman, that sparked an idea for him to bounce off of. While many people who came into the space wanted to talk business, or discuss how he could improve on the store and concept to make more money, Spijkerman remained at, what he calls, the ‘zero’.

Other people “wanted to connect emotionally to it and tell their whole life story” says Spijkerman, highlighting what he calls the “philosophical concept about the zero” where “people brought their own stories to [the concept]”.

“We live in a time where everything has to have a certain goal, purpose or destination. Just being in some kind of goal-less space, and a place where just being there and having contact with the person selling the concept, is an interesting thing to have. People needed to slow down and connect with space.” says Spijkerman. He also noted that the concept was very similar to theatre in that with theatre, “people enter your own space and it becomes another space”.

The storefront blog interview Thomas about the future of his project. Read on: https://blog.thestorefront.com/empty-pop-store-attracted-tons-visitors-amsterdam/