Cosmonauts of Inner Space – Group Art Exhibition, Brussels

The exhibition presents Belgian and International artists, scientists and researchers, covering a wide media spectrum, including Interactive Installations, Artificial Intelligence, Painting, Sculpture and more.

The Framework

The event will take place at the same time with exhibitions and performances in other big cities, like Athens and Tokyo, as part of the homonymous project: Cosmonauts of Inner Space, which is founded on the idea/concept of Spyros Verykios. He used the film Fantastic Voyage (Fleischer 1966) as the initial trigger, for focusing on the explorers of the “inner space” and their journeys within humans, which are an integral part of the human exploration in the seek of acquiring knowledge. The film recounts the adventures of a submarine crew which shrinks and becomes tiny so that it can enter the body of an injured scientist and fix the damage that his brain has suffered.

The exhibition’s rationale

In accordance with the overall project’s objectives, Cosmonauts of Inner Space Brussels exhibition focuses on the relationship between the different loci of the human quests for acquiring knowledge, the conjunctions and disjunctions between the inner and outer space, the microcosm and the macrocosm, the private and the social, as well as on the different ways/means of approaching them. As an initiative point, it aims to explore the dialectic relationship between the “microcosm” and the “macrocosm”, with conceptual emphasis on the inner voyage or the assumption of a figurative trip inside the human body.

Concerning the opposition between inner vs. outer space and microcosm vs. macrocosm, some scholars argue that there is no contrast; there is symmetry and isomorphy, or as Yuri Lotman argues, boundaries unify exactly as they divide.

The Curatorial Approach

The Brussel’s exhibition is characterized by an “openness” to all the approaches that the participants find relevant to its theme, as, for example, in relation to biology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, technology etc. This openness is additionally expressed through the representation of various media and artistic styles. The curatorial aim is not to present an exhibition with like-minded works that are in a “natural” dialogue, but to present variable, even contradicting works, creating a sincere in-depth dialogue among them.

During the exhibition, performances and research presentations will take place contributing to the dialogue, while some of the performances will be realized simultaneously between 3 different cities: Tokyo, Brussels and Athens.

It will be accompanied by a catalogue featuring the participating works, along with a curatorial overview by Maria ilia Katsaridou.

Participants

María Verónica Arís Zlatar, Harlinde De Mol, Hadassah Emmerich, Mikael Groc, Luna Haertjens, Allison Hake, YJ Lih, Robert Lisek, Chantal Pollier and the Magnetic Dance Project.

Info

Non profit event.
Where: Temple gallery: Boulevard Guillaume Van Haelen 132, 1190 Forest.
When: 14-25 of June 2018. Opening reception: 14 June 2018 time: 18:00 – 22:00.
How: Free entrance.
Idea/Concept: Spyros Verykios
Curator: ilia Katsaridou
Organizers: DUOtONE