Katrien Maes- Philip Sierens – Maarten Sierens en Rik Beuselinck
For this exhibition, Katrien and Philip draw on their own experience(s) of how a cancer diagnosis manifests itself and changes your view of the future. Without minimizing matters, they want to define the concept of cancer more neutrally based on the scientific facts.
Within the theme of the triennial “spaces of possibility”, Philip has transformed Katrien's studio and created new “mental spaces”.
The similarity between the scientific view on gravity in the theory of relativity, which is explained as a bending in spacetime under the influence of mass, and the analogy of how the future of cancer patients, where the diagnosis forms a mental mass that bends there vision on there future, this similarity is exposed in the studio.
Just as science has fundamentally changed our view on gravity, our view on cancer can probably also be interpreted differently.
This search forms the basis of this exhibition.
To explain gravity according to Einstein, the theory of relativity states that a mass locally bends spacetime. Everything that is in the vicinity of the mass will be irrevocably " be deflected" towards that mass due to the deflection in spacetime, even though there is no interaction or "force" acting on both masses. In this way, Einstein explains the concept of gravity differently than Newton, who assumed a "force" between masses to explain gravity. The theory of relativity remains valid in all experiments conducted sinds 1905, even though science knows that the ultimate solution will probabbly be found through a new theory, a quamtum gravitation theory that connect quantum mechanics with the theory of relativity.
Philip & Katrien recognizes an analogous effect in there cancer diagnosis. Even though there is no direct “visible force”, a cancer diagnosis, acting as a "mass", irrevocably “deflects” your vieuw on your future and forces you onto a different path.
Although a cancer diagnosis is intense, it is the vision of both that there is hope and a future with sufficient quality of life. They do not want to minimize their problems, but try to break free from the doom-mongering about cancer as a "terminal station". In Katrien's case it is about breast cancer, in Philip's case it is about blood cancer, Kahler's disease.
In 2017, Katrien created the work "Duoliet" together with Rik Beuselinck (metal art). It was the central piece of the exhibition Scarred/Scared, an exhibition about Katrien and Marijke Devaere's experience with breast cancer. In the "Duoliet", Katrien and Rik express, in an abstract manner, their vision of a number of recognizable phases in the disease process.
In 2017, Katrien
created the work "Duoliet" together with Rik Beuselinck. It was the
central piece of the exhibition Scarred/Scared, an exhibition about Katrien and
Marijke Devaere's experience with breast cancer. In the duolith, Katrien and Rik
express, in an abstract manner, their vision of a number of recognizable phases
in the disease process.
These are the interpretations of the "Duoliet" from bottom to top
Doom thinking
- Feeling "damaged"
- The "many blows" one has to deal with
- The "constricted feeling" of being "stuck",
- It requires "looking in the mirror" and facing one's situation
- Seeing your body destroyed by the treatment
This is the interpretation of the "Drop".
It symbolizes on the one hand
- The chemo, the fluid that damages you but also heals you.
- The sadness you experience but also the joy (crying with happiness)
- The drop also allows the viewer, although its curved shape, to look around the duolith. the image is distorted by the curvature of the droplet's surfac
These are the interpretations of the "Duoliet" from bottom to top:
- Doom thinking/black thinking
- Feeling "damaged".
- The "many blows" one has to deal with
- The "constricted feeling" of being "stuck",
- It requires "looking in the mirror" and deal with one's situation
- Seeing your body destroyed by the treatment
This is the interpretation of the "Drop". This symbolizes on the one hand
- The chemo, the fluid that damages you but also heals you.
- The sadness you experience but also the joy (crying with happiness)
- The drop also allows the viewer, although its curved shape, to look around the "Duoliet". the image is distorted by the curvature of the droplet's surface.
