This space has to be filled

25 mei 2016

In color psychology, pink is a sign of hope. It is a positive color inspiring warm and comforting feelings, a sense that everything will be okay. Pink calms and reassures our emotional energies, alleviating feelings of anger, aggression, resentment, abandonment and neglect. Studies have confirmed that exposure to large amounts of pink can have a calming effect on the nerves and create physical weakness in people. Violent and aggressive prisoners have been successfully calmed by placing them in a pink room for a specified amount of time. Exposure for too long can have the opposite effect.

Michiel Hilbrink’s new installation at P/////AKT focuses on the notion of the subject and the other, their mutual relations and, more specifically, how they influence each other. From different points of view – professional, private, public, competitive, intimate, anonymous, to name a few – relations seem to have no clear boundaries.

Where does a relation actually take place? How to recognise it? What are its effects? And are relations not mainly defined by language? Most relations are invisible at first sight, there seems to be nothing but an empty space. Maybe because they are so habitual or common that there is no conscious thinking involved. Relations between others can be invisible, or partly, maybe indirectly, visible.

The works in the exhibition are the layered and merged results of the explorations developed from these notions, not only when it comes to the relations between persons, groups and other organized entities but also between them, the non-humans and the things. Without trying to establish definite answers, these explorations have led to aesthetic assemblages that interlock notions of identity, material states, role models, interfaces and marketing strategies.

Open till 29 May 2016.
Pictures by Charlott Markus