10.06.2023 — 05.11.2023
patricia kaersenhout: Visions of Possibilities
patricia kaersenhout is known for her black-feminist critical engagement with artistic work as social practice. She is committed to exploring ideas pertaining to care, desire, power, and liberation.
patricia kaersenhout (l) and Chandra Frank (r) in front of the artwork While We Were Kings and Queens (2019), in the Bonnefanten, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 2023. Photo: Paco Núñez.
With Visions of Possibilities, the artist contemplates how we might imagine otherwise. Considering the wide scope of work addressing urgent themes such as atonement, sacredness, communion, and resistance, this exhibition invites us to think about how we grapple with the violent entanglements of the Dutch empire.
patricia kaersenhout, What a Piece of Work is Men, 2021. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Cassander Eeftinck Schattenkerk.
kaersenhout unravels and disrupts dominant narratives by centering stories that have been relegated to the margins of the Dutch cultural archive. By listening closely to the stories of Black women, indigenous women, and women of colour, the artist charts intricate constellations of care across geographies.
kaersenhout’s drawings, installations, textiles, and video works are shaped by an embodied, spiritual, and collective practice. In interweaving archival materials, dreams, memories and language, the artist shows how she contends with place, belonging, and impossibility.
patricia kaersenhout, The Hummingbird Women: Frida Kahlo, 2022. Collection Bonnefanten. Photo: Marjolein van Veen.
Recognizing the destruction and relations of power that shape the Dutch empire, she asks viewers to become active in her quest to break open other ways of feeling and seeing.
Visions of Possibilities reframes dominant archival, literary, and oral history encounters to point to more expansive interpretations of race, sexuality, and social norms.
patricia kaersenhout, Women of VOS #2: Camilla Parker and Ms. Weels, 2020. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Raul Balai.
Exhibition booklet
Want to know more about patricia kaersenhout? Keep reading in our exhibition booklet.
patricia kaersenhout, The politics of the Black female body #13 (bewerkt), 2012. Courtesy of Liesbeth Bik, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Monograph Open-ended Visions of Possibilities patricia kaersenhout
The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive, interactive, softcover monograph of the work of artist patricia kaersenhout, in which she spotlights Black feminist perspectives and forgotten histories. On an interactive level, the book links the stories of the Black women to the themes in the book. The artist’s book, which has 256 pages, is published by Jap Sam Books in English with a Dutch insert. The monograph is available from the Bonnefanten museum shop. Price: € 35.
This exhibition is made possible by:
Leading image: patricia kaersenhout, The politics of the Black female body #13 (edited), 2012. Courtesy of Liesbeth Bik, Rotterdam.
