The large sculptures that Sietske van Zandbergen makes are made of ceramics. This is clay that is baked in a very hot oven. Ceramics are usually used to make something beautiful, such as painted vases and tableware. But Sietske likes things that are nice and ugly or a bit creepy. For her sculptures, she uses fantasy figures that she encounters in advertisements, films for children or in the toy store. Those cheerful figures and cute toy monsters are actually also strange and scary. Sietske shows this duality in her sculptures, so that you don’t really know what to think of them. Are these figures really that nice, sweet or attractive?

Jan Patat, the laughing little man with a bag of chips for a body, who stands on the sidewalk at snack bars, is not at all happy in the sculptures that Sietske made of him. With an old, sad face, he sits tiredly on the ground, as if he no longer feels like being a chip advertisement. Or he lies on the ground, like a fallen bag of chips, and seems to be calling for help. The dragon that can also be seen at Fort Ruigenhoek, Sietske painted in soft colours. As if it were a cuddly toy. But everything about the dragon is so big: its mouth with teeth and the sharp spikes on its head. You feel like petting the dragon, but then again you don’t.