One of the works displayed at my solo exhibition “Not All That Glitters is Pixel” (April – May 2023). This exhibition is a result of a 3-month working period at DOC4 (37PK – Platform voor Kunsten), a residence house in Haarlem, Netherlands. It features a selection of multimedia pieces that meet in the space to create a visual journey through partially virtual, partially physical worlds that reflect on the personal deep-dive into the online spaces of my childhood and youth.
Through the exploration of certain social media trends and subcultures, I question my own position within these spaces and how they reflect on both my online and offline identity. How do these identities differ and influence one another? This contemporary existential question attempts to seep through the bubbly, colorful, and glittery fantasy exterior that shows up throughout the videos, costumes, tapestries, and other work.
I sample and fabricate my own image to lengths that no longer resemble my ‘authentic self’. Instead, they become utopian avatars detached from reality, in an attempt to mirror social media’s powerful potential to distort our own perception of self. In this exhibition, the Internet is a subject of neither critique nor endorsement but is rather treated as a neutral environment for various communities that contribute to shaping people’s internal, as well as external worlds; the same way, for instance, a country of one’s origin does.
For this working period and exhibition, by 37PK in 2022 from a group of graduating Fine Arts students of the Hogeschool van de Kunsten Utrecht (HKU).
