EXHIBITION HANDOUT/POSTER

The site-specific project by Stef Van Looveren treats the museum space as a hybrid of temple, body and alchemical laboratory. The focus is on metamorphosis, with melting, merging and mirroring as ways to explore the idea of transformation as both ritual and embodied experience. The exhibition begins with the performance OPUS II, in which visitors witness the space being constructed in real time through a ritualised procession of performers carrying and activating objects. This performance forms the first chapter of the work, establishing the spatial and symbolic framework for the rest of the installation.

At the core of the work are sound-producing sculptural forms that draw on organic structures, egg and seed shapes, bell forms and elemental vessels. Light reflects off their silvered surfaces and interacts with the movements of visitors. The sound that the sculptures produce acts as a structural element within the installation. Music unfolds like a mantra, beginning with the artist’s voice: it links sound to gender expression, healing and inner strength. The voice expands through bells, tuned objects and live instruments, shaping the space and connecting it to ongoing transformation. 

The shifting light and repetitive music suggest life cycles, decay and renewal. The metallic shapes evoke alchemical ideas of matter as both physical and symbolic. References to cyborg bodies, androgyny and intersex embodiments highlight the capacity for continual metamorphosis, while silvered bodies hint at medical, futuristic and sacred resonances, combining aspects of surgery, machinery and divine presence. As a whole, the installation loosely echoes the structure of a Tree of Life, suggesting an interconnected system of bodies and energies. 

The work invites visitors into an interior, introspective space where social conditioning can be questioned. Van Looveren refers to this as a form of “shadow work,” exploring what remains when inherited roles and identities lose their hold. Alchemical processes such as dissolution, transformation and reconfiguration metaphorically reflect fluid identity, queerness and the rejection of binary thinking.

Troughout the exhibition, materials shift and surfaces appear to melt, keeping the installation in a state of continual flux. Visitors experience a space of ongoing becoming, which is open-ended, reflective and grounded in the presence of bodies, sound and materials.