rhizome_ is a non-profit exhibition platform for contemporary art in Kortrijk, Belgium, with its roots in the principle of connective thinking. This results in collaborations with artists, curators and organizations active in the art world. For this edition, rhizome_ invites studio.est, a curatorial collective with a focus on contemporary art and architecture.

Kaleidoscope

23.10.2022 - 11.12.2022

Opening: Sunday 23.10.2022 from 14:00 tot 18:00

'Like loose pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope shaken back and forth, we have all simply changed places in the web of close relationships.’ _ The Odd Woman and the city. Vivian Gornick

Nienke Baekelandt, Lisette de Greeuw, Che Go Eun, Nadia Guerroui, Donovan Le Coadou, R.H. Quaytman, Edouard Schneider, Oussama Tabti, Charwei Tsai

The incentive for the exhibition is a simple toy: a kaleidoscope, a polygonal tube that you can look through, containing a compartment with colored beads, pearls, or pieces of glass on one side at a transparent spherical end. At the other end of the tube is a peephole where mirrors are attached at a faint angle. When using the kaleidoscope, the end is turned towards the light, causing reflections in the mirrors. By turning or shaking the tube, the multicolored fragments shift, allowing you to see different patterns and changing figures each time.

The word ‘kaleidoscope’ comes from Greek καλός (kalos), ‘beautiful’ + εἶδος (eidos), ‘form, shape' + σκοπεῖν (skopein), ‘to look’. It is thus a ‘pretty picture viewer’, a device that provides staggered variations and offers you a special light show every time. It often looks like symmetrical patterns, in the form of a rosette or with the structure of a mandala, a tunnel of light and shadow, where lines and spirals can even produce a hypnotizing effect.

The idea of kaleidoscopic thinking looks like a place where a range of viewpoints simultaneously accommodate the whole and the fragment. It is a metaphor for a motley mixture of possibilities and connections, a reflection of the multiple and the changing. It is a magic cylinder, which was initially to become a scientific instrument, but soon became a glittering toy.

Curator: Els Wuyts
Location: Koning Albertstraat 2, 8500 Kortrijk, Belgium
Open: every Sunday from 14:00 to 18:00 and by appointment
Contact: Monia Warnez, rhizome@monialisa.be