In Wonderland met Puck Verkade

De Nieuwe Schatkamer presents Uprooted, artist Puck Verkade's first solo exhibition in the Netherlands. An underworld of pink cardboard and papier-mâché features her animated videos. 'I want to entice people into the underworld with appealing colours and shapes,' the artist said from her studio in Berlin.

A fantasy world full of questions that raise new questions

The exhibition is spread across three cabinets. Each cabinet makes you reflect on important questions about caring, motherhood and our role on Earth. At the beginning of the exhibition, you can watch a video interview with the artist in which she explains what the work is about. But it is up to you to decide whether you want to enter the pink garden of cardboard and papier-mâché with an open mind, or whether you need more context. 

Uprooted features two main themes. One is the physical, psychological and social change a woman goes through when she becomes a mother, artfully depicted in a cartoonish experience. The other is the world we live in, based on James Lovelock's Gaia theory, which states that everything on Earth is interconnected. As humans, animals and plants we are all part of a larger system: Earth. And if we fail to take proper care of our planet, we will all feel the effects. In Uprooted, for example, the gardener poisons the environment with pesticides. Plants and animals all warn him, but he does not listen, with dire consequences. Everything is interconnected.

Family project

'I started on the first video when I was four months pregnant with my son. The main character, half human, half rabbit, emerged from the experience of pregnancy, the feeling of transforming from one to two – a hybrid form of being. My main characters are often hybrids. They lose their way, ask important life questions and undergo profound change. Heavily pregnant, I filmed and animated everything in stages. My partner created the soundscapes, and I used my son's face as a template for the figures in the animations. So our early family life is closely intertwined with this work. 

Originally created for the Yokohama Triennale in Japan, it has been evolving since 2023, and new elements continue to emerge. The new birth scene was animated for Beijing, but is shown here for the first time in a totally new and custom-made installation. Uprooted is deliberately regenerative in design, constantly gaining new branches, like a growing organism. 

Art as a mirror

For Puck, her work is a way of understanding what is on her mind. ‘I’m always in a state of wonder, and my main characters are magnifications of myself. They help me ask the tough questions I struggle with. Then, each answer raises new questions. I try to bridge the gap between myself and larger, societal issues, between the personal and the political.’

Themes

The complicated relationship between humankind and nature, care and motherhood are topics that keep recurring in Puck’s work. In her earlier works, Breeder, Unborn and Plague, she uses different formats to work out big existential questions. Breeder is about her process of becoming an egg donor at a fertility clinic, Uprooted is about creating new life while the Earth seems to be going under. 'When I was in my early 30s, I didn't know how to feel about motherhood. Everyone around me was having children, while I was walking around in a cloud of questions and doubts. The main question in Unborn was therefore: is it my own desire to become a mother, or is it actually society’s desire? And is there a way to escape it? At the time, a pair of pigeons had built their nest on my balcony, and I didn’t know what to do with it. And at the same time, debates about abortion rights flared up in Texas and Poland. I had to do something with that.’ 

Care and motherhood in art

According to Puck, care and motherhood are still underexposed in the art world. 'This theme is now getting more attention, and I hope it stays that way. And recognising its importance is one thing, but you also have to put it into practice. Just figuring it out theoretically is not enough. We take care of our parents, our children, our environment. This touches us deeply and sometimes also involves feelings of grief. I really hope it doesn’t turn out to be just another trendy, temporary, fleeting topic.'

Concerned about injustice from an early age

'My highly developed sense of justice no doubt has to do with the situation I grew up in. Even as a child, I was much concerned with injustice and wondered, is what I see around me as it should be, is it right what is happening here? My vivid imagination was my refuge. Not so much as a means to escape, but as a means to change, somewhere on the horizon. It is one of the reasons my work looks so beautiful, colourful and cheerful, with hybrid shapes and characters. At the same time, those lovely characters express harsh and uncomfortable things.'

A cheerful shape for serious topics

'While my work looks colourful and playful, its narratives deal with serious topics. I am convinced that you shouldn't shove complicated, nasty messages down people's throats. They won't land very well in a strict, dark form, people have no appetite for that at all. I believe creating stories, fairy tales and myths works so much better, and that is only something people can do. Rhyme also works well. It’s a form that lets you get away with a lot more. We have learned to think in opposites: black or white, serious or funny. But when you mix those extremes together, it creates something that people are far more willing to take in. That's what I'm trying to do.’

Why at De Nederlandsche Bank?

The decision to exhibit Puck Verkade’s work was a deliberate one. Her art resonates with themes such as sustainability and connectedness, themes De Nederlandsche Bank also considers important. 
She was also commissioned to use the exhibition space in De Nieuwe Schatkamer. 'The installation is tailor-made for the cabinets, it is a kind of walk-through diorama. Later this year, a three-by-four-metre inflatable sculpture in the shape of a giant rabbit lying on its back will be installed elsewhere in the bank. Visitors are invited to step inside and take a seat in the soft abdominal cavity to enjoy an audiovisual experience. This sculpture was on display earlier this year at my solo exhibition in Beijing, China.'

Artist Talk on 7 November 2025

On Friday, 7 November, Puck will tell us more about her work during an artist talk in the Auditorium of De Nederlandsche Bank. Afterwards, she will engage in conversation with curator Heske ten Cate, co-curator of the Good Mom/Bad Mom exhibition at Centraal Museum Utrecht, and Rosanna van Mierlo, curator of the art collection of De Nederlandsche Bank.

The exhibition Uprooted is on display in De Nieuwe Schatkamer at De Nederlandsche Bankuntil 13 February 2026.

Wondering what else you can do at De Nieuwe Schatkamer? Check the agenda for all our upcoming events.

Extraordinary works, extraordinary stories