In Search Of...

As a succession of experiences fulfilling our needs and blurring the poetics of sensations, our daily lives seem imbued with the banal and mechanical. However, through careful observation, these souvenirs can become rich, unique and singular sensations, deserving to be cherished and held onto. Such contemplations thus seek to capture the memories through our senses, and therefore through our entire being, transforming them into vessels of the authentic and deeply personal. Much like Proust’s Madeleine, these sensations seem conveyed by objects, that evoke their (hi)stories: a furniture, a colour, a space, a shape... The exhibition at Albert van Abbehuis, titled In Search of..., draws inspiration from the proustian exploration of memory and examines the countless fragments of our unremembered experiences. Centred on everyday objects, the artists and designers are invited to create new pieces while experimenting. Through processes of deconstruction and transformation, they fold, twist, pull, stretch, magnify, and burn these objects; reshaping their forms and colours, to evoke the vibrations and souvenirs they withheld — thus unveiling their inherent poetry. A spatial and temporal tension unfolds, where each crafted furniture bears witness to the lasting power of souvenir, inviting us to rediscover the extraordinary within the ordinary. As a Madeleine dipped in tea on a Sunday morning, the visitors are invited to experience the interaction between the memory and the material world, in this house where souvenirs persist, intertwine and come to life. Participants EOB Ae Office Sun Lee teo rhe Sheyang Li Seojun Yun Jieun Kim Hun Lee Walter Mingledorff Ptyx Studio Myeonga Seo x Marie Kolarova Dahm Lee Sunhyo Mast Thijs van Heerde Bureau Parso