Interview published in Metropolis M | Isabel Ferreira de Sousa | 08 11 2025
Since 1997, Ingeborg Meulendijks has been working on the same subject: The Secret House. An ongoing project in which the artist explores the perception and experience of space through scale models, handmade miniatures, photography, text and drawings. Her fascination with dollhouses,Oriental philosophy and interior architecture plays an important role in this. Isabel Ferreira de Sousa meets Meulendijks in the historic Tea House of Odapark, the location of her exhibition, and talks to her.
Ingeborg Meulendijks has been living in a nineteenth-century monastery in Steyl, Limburg, for almost twenty-five years. This exceptional location is also home to her studio, where her multidisciplinary art practice unfolds. The surroundings reflect the austere, spiritual, and introspective nature of Meulendijks' work. In this exhibition, curated together with Joep Vossebeld, the artist invites visitors to discover their relationship with space and ask themselves the question: what do we really need to make a space feel like home? Her secret house reveals her quest and calls on visitors to find stillness.
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
You selected eight scale models for different spaces forthis exhibition. How did you come up with the idea of using scale models to explore space?
Ingeborg Meulendijks
I used to make scale models when I was designing exhibitions. And then I noticed that the essential things happened on a small scale. For me, the scale model is a kind of intermediate zone, the threshold between imagination and reality. And it is precisely this intermediate zone, which cannot be fully defined, that truly interests me.
This was connected to a visit to the Rijksmuseum, where I discovered Petronella Oortman's 17th-century cabinet dollhouses. These dollhouses were a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk — a record of the interior with a very clear narrative of that period. I then overcame a kind of hesitation and decided to use it as a means of expressing my ideas. Oortman's work was an inspiration and a starting point for my scale models, to bring a miniature room to life with a number of objects. So that it gets a story. And photographing it came immediately afterwards, to be able to compare the different interiors with each other.
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
The title of your exhibition, The Secret House, evokes feelings of intimacy. How did you come up with the title?
Ingeborg Meulendijks
Once the scale models were finished, I worked on them with light and photographed the interior space. It is a record of reality, but at the same time it has a symbolic dimension. It is a world between what is inside and outside my head. What is imagination and what is reality. The interiors are intimate spaces. They are mixtures of images, references to different times and different cultures. As well as references to ordinary objects that you can find in my studio. Autobiographical elements that blend into a reality of their own. For me, there is something mysterious about that. It is not hidden but ungraspable, it is secret. Hence the title The Secret House.
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
You have created a booklet with notes and drawings for each scale model. I am curious to know how these relate to the emptiness of the spaces?
Ingeborg Meulendijks
In the beginning, there was a lot of emphasis on intuition and materiality. Through my work at the architecture academy, I started to question myself about what space actually is — What does it mean to be in space? What does it mean to frame spaces? In asking these questions, I discovered that there is also an abstract layer to it.
That process is recorded in thought writings that are on display for the first time in the exhibition.
There is a sensitive or sensual layer — the atmosphere in tangible things through materiality, light, objects, and scale proportion. But there is also a more abstract layer. In it, there was more and more room for emptiness, as it were, also influenced by my fascination with Eastern philosophy and the meaning of emptiness, which has a positive connotation there. The distance between the two objects or between two walls creates a void that takes on meaning. That meaningful void has increasingly become a subject or instrument.
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
The emptiness and the Eastern, particularly Japanese, influence are evident. Can you tell us about your choice of architectural perspective?
Ingeborg Meulendijks
Yes, ever since my childhood I have been fascinated by the East, and Japan in particular, even though I have no family or physical connections there. Philosophy inevitably leads you to architecture. Especially classical Japanese architecture. And also the tea rooms, which I find particularly interesting, mainly because they create spaces that deliberately withdraw from the political, social and domestic domains.
The spiritual value of those architectural intermediate spaces — the fact that there is space between idea and reality — resonated with me. It's not that I work with tatami dimensions. Actually, I try to forget Japanese architecture a little, but it emerges naturally.
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
Your work pays a lot of attention to shadow and light, which are also present in the texture. There is also a certain softness that I perceive as feminine.
Ingeborg Meulendijks
That's right. I also do commissioned work, which is architecture in scale one to one. In this commission work, I see that I soften the architecture, for example in “Villa A - A Softer Edge” by covering walls with jacquard woven wool fabric, which I designed myself and produced in collaboration with Textiellab Tilburg. I think that's an important component, especially when you're staying in a space, that it has a protective layer — a structurally solid layer, but also a softer, more flexible layer that can absorb, listen and respond.
I also used textiles in The Secret House. This originates from my current research into monastic clothing and the fact that you work withouter layers and inner layers. I used softer, more translucent fabrics that allow transparency to the inside, but also solid materials that project animage to the outside. I explored this further in the scale models: when do you deliberately place the soft on the outside and the protective on the inside, or vice versa?
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
In this quest, you use natural materials: pine wood, birch plywood and linen. Is there a development in the choice and naming of the rooms? And how does that go hand in hand with the feeling of intimacy?
Ingeborg Meulendijks
The use of natural materials is a constant factor in my work; it refers to simplicity and connectedness with the transitory aspect of nature. You can hear that in the titles of my latest works, which refer to seasons or a garden.
I work on a scale of one to seven. Seven is a sacred numberin many cultures. But it also refers to the scale of the Barbie dolls I used to play with.
In an earlier series, I explored how a single space with fixed dimensions can take on a very different character and intimacy through different openings and light. The variations were given titles with numbers, Room No. 1 to 8.
The latest series has descriptive names such as Washroom, Changing Room, and Garden Room. This often has to do with the activity that takes place in them. The fact that this activity can also have symbolic value stems from my fascination with the interior as an inner world, intimacy in space. In Changing Room, you see a mattress; changing clothes is the activity that takes place there, connected to the seasons. Naming and design go hand in hand. I have never created a conference room or office room.
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
Why do everyday actions play such an important role in your work?
Ingeborg Meulendijks
Actions ultimately bring a space to life. I look for actions in everyday life. Just sitting at a table, writing, lying on a bed. These are not very unusual actions. But as a ritual, the everyday takes on meaning. And beauty, too. That's what I try to achieve with my work. To capture the wonder in the everyday. The essence of simple moments.
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
How do you look at interiors compared to how people in Western society experience interiors these days?
Ingeborg Meulendijks
I think everyone looks for a home in an interior. Home is something you experience. I think that actions give meaning to a space. And that's what makes it a home. So for me, home is a ritual space. And I sometimes miss that in modern interiors. I feel that people want to achieve or buy that feeling of home very quickly. But it takes time to develop. You have to spend along time with things to actually feel their essence.
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
Marketing also promotes the idea that certain objects are appropriate for creating a sense of home. There is no consideration for an individual's personal input and their presence in the space.
Ingeborg Meulendijks
Precisely. The word “being” is very important to me. Thesearch for being in a space. Being present, dwelling. Home is a personal spiritual place.
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
This exhibition reveals your interpretation of space. Peace and harmony prevail. Are you consciously seeking balance?
Ingeborg Meulendijks
Yes, I am looking for that balance, but it is not planned in advance; I improvise. I have a cupboard where I keep my homemade miniature objects. Making the miniatures creates space to think and associate. And then it becomes a play to see which objects fit together. The scenography of this exhibition is a good example of that. There were many moments when I thought: this is the given architectural space. What can I do here to bring out the feeling that is specific to my vocabulary? To transform this public space into a tranquil place? I utilised the structure of the building and the calmness of the natural environment. Little artificial light was used so that the daylight from the skylights could illuminate the photographs. You can also see treeleaves that have fallen on these skylights, in harmony with the fact that we are here, in autumn, in a forest.
The design enables you to be even more open to what is there and the potential it holds. It is born out of thirty years of fascination with interior architecture. And experiencing space, emptiness and shadow to create a tranquil atmosphere.
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
The sober layout of the exhibition gives me a strong spiritual and meditative feeling. What do you want to convey to the public?
Ingeborg Meulendijks
The space invites you to be calm and to experience things with attention. Yes, that is the intention of the exhibition. But it is alsowhat I myself seek when I am working. I believe that every person has an active side and a passive, tranquil side. And both are valuable. In this work, I try to act from that calmness, to let the silence speak.
Silence is often overruled, emptiness quickly filled. That is why I have created a sober exhibition that offers room for personal interpretation. With the hope that when you leave the exhibition and walk through the forest, you will experience everything even more intensely: the autumn colours, the wind, the smell of earth. Because you have been in a state of tranquillity for a moment. All the details are focused on that.
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
How did you select these works? Did you follow a set of criteria or take an intuitive approach?
Ingeborg Meulendijks
I worked intuitively. I selected interiors that have a connection with nature. You can see openings in the scale models, which are white areas in the photographs. I don't define what's in the outside world, in order to keep the focus inside. But you can easily imagine that there is a forest or a tree there, like here in Odapark.
Sometimes there are also leaves or fragments of flora in the photographs. This emphasises the transitional aspect of nature. I have also selected photos from my scale models for the two spatial installations — the Passage and the Room— where Charlotte Lagro's film about my working process can be seen. These are new works, based on the scale models, I made with the team (Bas de Weerd, Linda Robben and Luc Knapen).
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
The series of black-and-white analogue photographs, whichyou developed yourself in a darkroom and had printed in two sizes, occupies a prominent place in the exhibition. What is the role of photography in your work and how does it relate to the scale models?
Ingeborg Meulendijks
I am a drawing artist. But I also enjoy practising things Iam not very good at. To explore an idea spatially, I make a scale model. When the light comes on in the scale model and the miniature furniture is arranged in a certain way, I take a photograph of it. To capture it, but also to reduceit to a plain surface.
Here, too, there is a fascination with the duality inherent in our Western thinking. It is 2D or 3D. It is either flat or spatial. My work is both flat and spatial. And that gives me freedom. Freedom to play and think. For me, the photographs are an end point. I create everything in order to take the photograph. That is the point where I stop and think, now I am at home in the intermediate zone, the space between ideas and reality.
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
You lead the visitor from the outside to the inside, to your secret interior, in the hope that they can make the connection. Is that right?
Ingeborg Meulendijks
I show the interiors as a record of my focus oncontemplation. I try to do this as openly and honestly as possible. I hope that by taking the time to view the exhibition, visitors will experience a different aspect of being. That there will be open space in a world full of stimuli. A momentary liberation from time pressure. That the silence can resonate.
Isabel Ferreira de Sousa
teaches at the Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts and writes about art