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Bertjan Pot, Liesbeth Abbenes and Maurice Scheltens are gathered in The Hague’s Museum Voorlinden after hours. How are they? “A bit tired,” admits Pot. It’s day 10 of a two-week residency that has seen the trio install a temporary kite studio in the museum. Each day, they help a new guest artist construct their dream kite to fly on the dunes outside, while motorised flying machines send colourful sails whizzing overhead and members of the public observe with curiosity.

This is the physical manifestation of Kite Club (@_kite_club_), a collective formed on Instagram for sharing handmade single-line kites. It is not normally a day job. Pot is an industrial designer, best known for his cocoon-style Random lights for Moooi and expressive PotMasks made from coils of coloured rope, while Scheltens and Abbenes are a still life photography duo, shooting for Hermès, Maison Margiela and Humanrace, as well as magazines like MacGuffin and The Gentlewoman. They caught each other’s attention in 2017 when Scheltens posted a rectangular Japanese Kaku Dako kite from a camping trip, “made out of a garbage bag, some tape I had in the car and some bamboo sticks that I found,” he says. “For two or three years we were just sharing kites with each other on Instagram,” says Pot. “Details of kites, or knots, pockets and connectors.”

From left: Liesbeth Abbenes, Bertjan Pot and Maurice Scheltens with Easy Kite by Scheltens & AbbenesFrom left: Liesbeth Abbenes, Bertjan Pot and Maurice Scheltens with Easy Kite by Scheltens & Abbenes © Valentina VosThe photo book One Single Kite by Liesbeth Abbenes, Maurice Scheltens and Bertjan PotThe photo book One Single Kite by Liesbeth Abbenes, Maurice Scheltens and Bertjan Pot © Valentina VosDacron parts for kitesDacron parts for kites © Valentina Vos

In the years since, the kite-making hobbyists have developed a joint online presence and a signature style – bold and busy designs constructed from ripstop nylon with carbon-fibre frames. Their growing collection, produced at the founders’ respective studios in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, has been exhibited at Amsterdam’s NDSM Wharf and as part of Gucci’s Bamboo Encounters display at this year’s Milan Design Week, where graphic still life compositions and psychedelic patterns fluttered in the shaded walkways of Chiostri di San Simpliciano.

Here at Voorlinden, the kites form a sprawling collage across one wall of the makeshift studio. Their influences are mostly Asian – the trio enthuse about the insect- and kimono-shaped kites produced in Japan – though Pot goes mad for fringe: “I have a few kites that I say are Japanese with Mexican vibes.” His creations are often elaborately patterned, especially since he discovered that he could tie-dye them. “Most of my inspiration comes from quilts or other textile technologies,” he says. The still life photographers are more focused on putting images or messages on their kites, such as a giant rotary fan or block letters reading “blown away”. “They’re really carefully cut so when the kite is flying the letters are sort of blowing away,” says Pot, who is just as comfortable discussing his friends’ designs as his own.

Abbenes, Pot and Scheltens flying kitesAbbenes, Pot and Scheltens flying kites © Valentina Vos

“But then you did a fantastic message to your future husband,” Scheltens jumps in, referring to a patterned pink kite that reads “Marry Me”. “I tricked him into it,” jokes Pot, who proposed by flying the kite and giving his now-fiancé another that said, “Okay”. “Since he didn’t let go I think we have a deal,” he smiles. They have also made traditional hexagonal kites to use as protest banners at a march for Gaza, and Abbenes created a portrait of her mother to fly at her ash-scattering ceremony. “Watching a kite is a kind of meditative moment,” she says. “Just looking at it, seeing it move.” “Like a campfire,” Scheltens nods.

Pot proposed to his husband by flying a kite that said “Marry me?”

Kite Club is an unbridled creative outlet for the group. “We already take a lot of freedom for our projects, but these kites give even more freedom because there are no clients involved,” says Scheltens. The practices aren’t dissimilar, however, says Abbenes: “Often I wouldn’t represent myself as a photographer but more like a builder in the set. It involves a lot of textiles.” They have combined the two passions in a photobook, One Single Kite (€35), which chronicles each stage of the making process, the kite’s vivid colours enlivened by a light box. “It came from the feeling that the process looks, visually, very beautiful,” says Abbenes. “So the book is not only an instruction book but also a book for design lovers.”

Various kite collaborations with Hansje van Halem, Andreas Samuelsson, Freelingwaters, Tim Johannis and Arne HendriksVarious kite collaborations with Hansje van Halem, Andreas Samuelsson, Freelingwaters, Tim Johannis and Arne Hendriks © Valentina VosA collaborative kite by Bertjan Pot x Scheltens & AbbenesA collaborative kite by Bertjan Pot x Scheltens & Abbenes © Valentina Vos

For the Gucci exhibition earlier this year, the designers created so-called Easy Kites using waste plastic and tape to build translucent polyhedrons with long striped tails. “We hardly throw out any plastic any more,” says Abbenes, who recently rescued a hoard of hot-pink marshmallow packets that were going to be disposed of at the museum. “That became an umbrella-shaped kite, with these super-bright colours. The sun can go through it very nicely so the colours become really powerful.” Ideas for a follow-up book on the simpler plastic kites are brewing, because “everybody can make it”, says Scheltens.

“That’s what’s nice about kite flying,” says Pot, “it’s much more generous in sharing ideas than most art or design projects that I’m aware of. And that’s also why we collaborate a lot with other artists.” Right on cue, conceptual artist Willem de Haan pops his head around the door to say goodbye, having successfully flown his floating For Sale sign, inspired by the various apartment blocks in Amsterdam being sold before they are built.

Abbenes with For Sale by Willem de Haan x Scheltens & AbbenesAbbenes with For Sale by Willem de Haan x Scheltens & Abbenes © Valentina VosFree Gaza by Scheltens & AbbenesFree Gaza by Scheltens & Abbenes © Valentina Vos

Kite Club’s next project doesn’t focus on the group’s own creations, but instead on the collection of British kite enthusiast Malcolm Goodman, who has amassed more than 1,000 kites at his house in Teesdale. Kite Club is designing a travelling exhibition and accompanying book to honour the collection, which Goodman is hoping to relocate. It includes everything from Indonesian leaf kites to three-dimensional silk butterflies, as well as 5mm kites that retired Samurai warriors used to make from straw and tissue paper and fly over the steam from a hot stove. The exhibition opens at Rotterdam’s Kunsthal in May.

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Meanwhile, the trio will continue to make their own kites, with the intention to put on a “more white cube” exhibition for their next show. Asked if the kites are for sale, “the short answer is no, and the long answer is yes but it’s not cheap”, says Pot. “If we feel that somebody really wants it and we also feel that it’s the right person for it then we can always talk about it,” adds Scheltens, “but they don’t have any price tags on them.”

The real aim is to encourage people to make their own kites, he continues, showing off a pair of pin badges produced for the Voorlinden show proclaiming “Go Fly A Kite”, but also “Make A Kite”. The trio actually spend far more time on the latter than the former, laughs Pot. “Of course, the first time we lift up the kite and it flies, that’s a magical moment,” reflects Abbenes. “But I think the making is more important to me.”