The Thinking Hand / curated by Marie Mees & Tatjana Pieters

About

Following the ecological and social stance of the main theme of the festival, ‘Be Wild, Act and Change’ this exhibition presents a selection of artists, architects and designers whose practices incorporate and conceptualise a sustainable approach, looking for alternatives to increasingly scarce raw materials.

The title is a direct reference to Juhani Pallasmaa’s eponymous essay and is an invitation to consider the return of craftsmanship as a politically engaged endeavour as well as a movement towards a more nature-centered way of living and producing. Understood as an extension of the mind, ‘The Thinking Hand’ represents the agency of the body in the creative process. With manual work, the hand becomes both the creative agent and the first intermediary between the matter and the finished product.

This group exhibition brings light to the crafted object as the result of the artist’s intent and skills, inscribed over the long-time perspective of the manual production. Opposing the rapidness of modern methods to the slowness of traditional manual work, the selection of works presents different layers of meaning, each artist offering their own take on the relationship between nature, humanity and the creative process.