For this holiday season, Hermès invites artist duo Heringa/Van Kalsbeek to activate the windows in its Amsterdam store on PC Hoofstraat 94. Inspired by this year’s theme, “Astonishing Hermès!” as well as the magic of Hermès’ creative freedom, the artists evoke a crisp winter landscape and festive feeling whilst bouncing between material realms and metaphysical space.

Embarking on a voyage of painterly imagination, the viewer is invited to journey between theatrical dreamscapes, encountering themes of childlike playfulness. The installation, constructed on three unique windows, creates subtle shades of tranquillity stirred by bustling scenes, such as a cold gust of rain and snow flurrying through greenery, birds, and trees. A constellation of ice flowers and the most enchanting pine forest inhabit the two large installations respectively, while a little wren lives inside the smaller window. Drawn from the synesthetic wonders of 19th-century paper toy theatre’s dioramas, spatial layers frame pure motion and transcend single dimensions. Like characters moving about the set, Hermès objects inhabit this scenic universe: the viewer can almost hear the Steeple bag galloping towards the horizon with an impetuous rhythm. Multiple other elements are visible at the back of this magic set.

Always fascinated by the different spatial forms of theatre and the intrinsic link between the front stage and backstage, the artist duo Heringa/ Van Kalsbeek have worked within the plastic realms of painting and sculpture since 1998, drawing inspiration from architecture, ceramic, and various visual languages imbued with history and distant civilizations. Their artwork, put together from found objects, cast shapes, and painted canvas, unveils our illusory sense of perception.