Scenopgraphy
The exhibitions produced so far are documentary and have a cultural or social inflection: from zoos and furniture manufacturers to the underground press during the Second World War. The form of an exhibition always arises out of the subject itself and its spatial context. The interpretation of the subject and the spatial possibilities guide the selection of the material to be exhibited as well as the objects, documentation, images, and eyewitness accounts that lend it extra body. The final scenography is based on making an effective, attractive route through both subject and exhibition space.
“An exhibitionmaker undertakes a journey of discovery every time he takes up a new subject or starts to work with new material – regardless of whether it’s about art objects, archival material, or something else. You find yourself as maker in a privileged position for immersing yourself in a subject and making that material yours, to understand. The result, the exhibition itself, has to be a kind of machine that transforms that journey of discovery in such a way that the visitor can experience the same process and gets the chance to discover that material for him- or herself.” (TvD)
Citation from the book Recollecting Landscapes, ‘New museums for new contents, from a conversation between Philippe Van Cauteren, director of the Stedelijke Museum voor Actuele Kunst (SMAK), Ghent, Katrien Vandermarliere, director of the Vlaams Architectuur Instituut (Vai), Richard Venlet, artist, and Terenja van Dijk (TvD)