Wayward Sanctuaries

Build and create your own connection

The exhibition brings together work by fifteen emerging artists living and working in Belgium: Elise El Yousfi, Collyns Charts, Jonabel Huavas, Aya Koné, Eveline Bumba, Joseph Palframan, Luz EL Bran, Hsiao-Hsi Chen, Charbel Alkhoury, Jiyoung Chu, Aïcha Ouattara, Emily Walter, Thuy Lê Thi Thu, Kenny Mala Ngombe and Kadia Doumbouya.

The exhibition is curated by Leana Boven within The Constant Now’s POC POC mentoring program and is realized in collaboration with The Constant Now, Kunsthal Mechelen, and de Brakke Grond. At a time when multiple crises are unfolding worldwide, the artists in Wayward Sanctuaries pose the question of what it actually means to create a home. A home need not be merely a place to flee to. It can also be a place where there is room for new and unconventional ideas and where forms of resistance can grow.

In Wayward Sanctuaries, the artists do not wait for existing systems to grant them a place. They build their own communities through ritual actions, spiritual thinking, and 'rememory': the conscious retrieval of stories and memories that are often forgotten or repressed. In this way, they attempt to give meaning, offer hope, and create a sense of connection.

The artists work within and against institutions or systems, but also bend them to their will. They appropriate these places as sites of collective spirituality and sanctuaries for magic and imagination. The exhibition also addresses the larger cycles of life: death and rebirth, presence and absence, collapse and recovery. It invites you to look at change, evolution, and growth differently.