Time Within Time

Group Exhibition

11.11.2018–07.04.2019: Verbeke Foundation, Kemzeke, BE

Verbeke Foundation is a private art site where culture, nature and ecology go hand in hand. ‘Verbeke Foundation does not aim to be an oasis. Our presentation is unfinished, in motion, unpolished, contradictory, untidy, complex, inharmonious, living and unmonumental, like the world outside of the museum walls’.

Liquid Properties, made in collaboration with Toril Johannessen, will be installed in a new installation format together with the film ‘Reclaiming Vision’ for the upcoming winter exhibition. The sculptural installation ‘Liquid Properties’, realised in collaboration with Toril Johannessen and originally commissioned by the Munch Museum in Oslo, consist of hand blown glass objects in a variety of shapes reminiscing of lab equipment glassware, buoys, ecospheres and water lenses. The glass objects are containers for samples of water taken from various sources, and are held by a meandering metal framework in a laboratory like set-up.

Each of the containers have one or more lenses integrated in the glass body, slightly magnifying the organisms, particles and pollutants inside. Studied up close, the glass objects are isolated ecosystems, also known as ecospheres. As a total installation, they might remind of models within a taxonomic structure, or even globes within a planetary system.

The ecosystems in the glass containers are changing over time, displaying natural processes where some organisms will thrive, others will not; some will be clear, others dense. Some might be taken over by bacteria, others may see algae growth, or perhaps the reproduction processes of creatures like tiny worms or shrimps.

Natural conditions, randomness as well as deliberate interaction will influence the live processes within the ecospheres. As such the installation is an experiment that ultimately looks at how we relate to (microscopic) life, questioning what is considered attractive, natural, resilient, repulsive, toxic or harmful.

Verbeke Foundation
Westakker z/n (GPS nr. 1)
9190 Kemzeke, Belgium
+32 (0)3/789.22.07