Immortality – Sustaining the Present, the Past, the Future

Carla Åhlander, Iddo Drevijn, Antje Peters, Bettina Pousttchi, Elian Somers

Witte de Withstraat 50

Immortality is concerned with the survival of ideas, and how ideas about ourselves and others are passed on unchangeably, become collective thought and influence our daily lives. The exhibition was curated by Fatos Üstek, TENT Young Curator 2009.

Bettina Pousttchi presented a video recording of a protest demonstration and Blackout, a sculpture of barriers. The twisted steel uprights could be the result of a violent demonstration, but also have an elegance that relativizes their regulatory function.

Carla Ahlander showed a photo series of waiting rooms in the city offices of Berlin. At first the spaces present themselves neutrally, and the power seems discreet. In the waiting rooms we see no people, only the possibility of their presence.

The wall text Your Mind is My Revolution by Iddo Drevijn is essentially an optimistic work. We do not know the subject, but it positions itself as the protagonist of a change, and claims the imaginary audience to unleash a revolution.

The photo series of Elian Somers have urban utopias such as Brasilia and the Cité Modelé in Brussels as their subject. She is interested in the way in which the idea of ​​progress that lies behind the design of these residential areas becomes visible in photography. In her project on the city of Kaliningrad, she examines the traces of the various ideologies that have determined the history of the city.

Antje Peters photographed the series Collection on behalf of a publication on the corporate identity of Dutch ministries by Studio Dumbar. The photos show office supplies and promotional gifts with the logos of the various ministries. In 2008, the government decided to use one logo and these identity carriers became redundant.

The TENT Young Curator programme offered young exhibition makers the opportunity to become acquainted with the Rotterdam art world.