What creatives do in isolation #20: KesselsKramer’s Maartje Slijpen & Brenda Waegemaekers, A message from the world’s windows

We can’t hug. We can’t even get within 1.5 metres of each other. But we’re finding all sorts of new ways to connect with and support each other. KesselsKramer has found one of the most wonderful.

It’s using windows to talk to all the humans in the world.

From Design & Other [Cameron Lotfhouse & Monica Placella], Kyneton, Australia

Maartje Slijpen & Brenda Waegemaekers, the creative team behind the concept, explained, “We found ourselves staring out of our windows, realising that this was our only physical connection to the outside world. We wondered: if these windows could talk, what would they tell us?”

The agency got together with screenwriter Efthimis Filippou [The Lobster and Dogtooth] and 62 artists – including Hort Berlin founder, Eike König; French illustrator, Jean Jullien; Ukrainian artistic duo, Synchrodogs; and Brooklyn-based photographer, Jeremy Liebman, to let 62 windows send a message to humans during Covid-19.

To make their project, the pair created a story, broke it up into sections, and invited artists to bring it to life in their home windows.

KesselsKramer London creative partner, Dave Bell, put them in touch with Efthimis Filippou. “As big admirers of his ability to mix humour with meaning, we were thrilled to invite him as the ‘window-writer’,” the team noted.

Filippou started working on a short script, describing the windows as objects with emotions that support people. The creatives then divided this script into 62 sections and started assigning these to different artists from the KesselsKramer network. In no time, windows were coming in from Tokyo, Nairobi, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Niagara Falls, Berlin, Florianópolis, an Austrian mountaintop, and a Dutch hamlet called Middel.

“Not all went smoothly,” the team commented. “Collaborating was a challenge (time zones). 8th-floor apartments were a challenge (across-the-street neighbours turned photographers). Punctuation marks were a challenge (‘The full stop flew off!’). And tiny windows were a challenge (‘Can I swap my ten-letter word for a three-letter one?’). But no glass was broken. And in the end, 62 artists managed. With paint, tape, toilet rolls, soap, AR, dogs, projectors, more dogs, crying babies, and three pairs of naked ass.”