Photographer Maurice Scheltens and his artist partner Liesbeth Abbenes harness their signature style to fashion graphic compositions that transform their subject matter in their latest series, Pass Through. Having previously turned their gift for abstraction towards everything from soaps to shirts and coat hangers, here they pay colorful homage to Dutch furniture manufacturer Pastoe on its 100th birthday. To create the images, Scheltens & Abbenes took to the factory floor, where semi-constructed parts on the production line inspired the subversive geometric forms they conceived. “The functional black-and-white documentary photography from the 50s and 60s triggered the abstract, rhythmic installations we made,” explains the duo. “Our thought was to show the ‘half product’ as a whole, displaying the inside instead of the outside.” Pastoe has a long history of collaborating with Dutch creatives to interpret their celebrated pieces, and Scheltens & Abbenes join a new stable—including the likes of graphic design Studio Laucke Siebein, artist Krijn de Koning and architect Anne Holtrop—to celebrate the centenary in advance of next month’s Object Rotterdam contemporary design fair. 

What is the process behind your meticulous photographic compositions? Are you very patient by nature?
Scheltens & Abbenes: We shape the full idea for the picture on set. During the making of the images, we are constantly testing things, to see if they are visually true. This slowness is important, and working in this way has made us more patient—but we’re also eager, restless and impatient to find out the result. 

Is any kind of object a viable photographic subject for you?
S&A: Objects that are timeless are maybe more desirable to us. But in the end everything could work, as long as we can see the objects as building blocks in the composition.

Do you see your work as part of a long history of Dutch still life?
S&A: This is the world we know. Our nationality is not something that we deliberately cultivate in our work, but it becomes clear time and again to us during our travels. It’s not only the aesthetics of the Dutch still life, but also a way of approaching and solving a creative “problem.”

Pass Through will be previewed during the Object Rotterdam fair from February 7-10. The full series will be shown from February 23 until  June 2, 2013 at the Kunsthal Rotterdam as part of Like Pastoe, 100 years of Design Innovation.