MAKING TROUVÉ

THE TECHNICAL AND THE POLITICAL

In 2018 I took an MBO course in TIG welding. Not because I needed it for some grand plan, but because I wanted to understand how metal works—how it bends, fuses, holds tension. That knowledge came in handy the following year when I decided to produce Marten van Middelkoop's Trouvé lamp.

His concept was elegant: two aluminum extrusion heat sinks placed against each other, creating a closed form with a light source inside, shining upward against a flat disc for indirect light. Simple on paper. Technically? A nightmare.

The extrusion was developed in Groningen by Hydro. First they made molds, then pressed long lengths and cut them to size. But here's the problem: those refined aluminum fins created tension on the curved sections and especially on the flat edges. The two half-circles had to sit perfectly flush against each other—no gaps, no wobbling. Inside that hollow core we needed to fit both the LED and the driver. Plus I wanted a dimming switch on the lamp itself, not dangling halfway down the cord.

Every detail required engineering solutions. How do you integrate a switch without disrupting the clean lines? How do you ensure those fins don't warp under tension? How do you keep everything producible in the Netherlands without cutting corners?

I figured it out. Hands-on problem solving, technical precision, Dutch manufacturing. That's the making part.

But here's what mattered more to me: COHORS wasn't just about producing a beautiful lamp. It was about creating a different model. In the commercial design world, the product designer gets the glory. Everyone else—the photographer, the animator, the composer—gets relegated to "support staff." Their names buried in fine print, if mentioned at all.

I refused that hierarchy.

When you bought the Trouvé, you weren't buying a lamp. You were buying an exhibition. The packaging was designed by graphic designer and illustrator Eveline Schram, who got carte blanche. She also created an amazing piece of artwork that you received with the lamp. The product photography was art in its own right, done by Milan Boonstra. We commissioned an AR instruction manual to Freek Rutkens, an advertising film by Joost Camaro, even a soundtrack (Eric Magnée). Each artist received the same brief—here's the Trouvé lamp—and complete creative freedom to respond from their own practice. Equal billing. Equal recognition. Equal investment in their artistry.

This wasn't charity or some feel-good gesture. It was a statement: art doesn't just live in galleries and biennials. It can function in commercial contexts without surrendering to commercial logic. You don't have to flatten everyone's contribution into "content." You can build something that respects craft, compensates fairly, and still works as a product.

COHORS lasted one dramatic year before COVID hit. But the principle stands: making things differently requires building the entire structure differently—technically, economically and politically. From extrusion molds to equal billing, from TIG welding to carte blanche. That's what making means to me.

Artwork Trouvé packaging by Eveline Schram

Packaging and manual Eveline Schram

Manual for using with Augmented Reality