A duo-exposition with Sarah Fokke and Jeltje Schuurmans at Kunsthal Kloof

26 July - 25 August 2024

 

‘Tussen levende lagen’ (translation: between living layers) is an exhibition by Sarah Fokke and Jeltje Schuurmans which explores the sense of alienation with ourselves and our surroundings and the way it conflicts with our urge for familiar views and feelings of belonging. The artists conjured a serene landscape filled with artworks that combine organic, transforming materials with durable epoxy, plaster, and steel. Together, the exhibition is at once an oasis as well as a laboratory. A futuristic fata-morgana that closes the distance and allows unease and calm to flow into eachother.

 

A timecapsule from outerspace and outertime.

 

Beyond clear recognition, undefinable things become beings that seem to carry multiple lives inside of them. At the same time they remain empty husks, cast from the shapes we lost long ago. Alienation permutates and morphs the surroundings into a mirror that reflects our growing amnesia from our own bodies and thoughts. In a future dreamscape that feels both shapeshifting and shapeless, where are we? Where ends me? Hasn’t my body always been nothing but a collection of chemical processes? Is my mind anything more than collection of imprints from my family and surroundings? 

 

In ‘tussen levende lagen’ the artists present the contrast between uncertainty and wanting to know, between alienation and recognition. The exhibition envelops the audience in an unknown outerworld that at the same time attempts to be a lab for categorization and preservation. 

Perhaps it is between these opposites we can catch a glimpse of the only I that truly exists. In the layers between life and death. Between deterioration and eternity. In the ever-ending now. 

 

‘Tussen levende lagen’ presents these questions as ongoing, evolving with each new discovery. Perhaps there are moments of familiarity in bewilderment after all.

 

Text: Stein van der Ziel 

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