Poetry is dirty and so are we — Slippery contacts from allocated lockers

Installation of old, heavy belongings, locker-room hooks and restaurant waiting buzzers in pockets (Research for Practice), 2026

This work was installed as part of a collaborative exhibition titled “Uncut,” jointly organized by the Rietveld Academy and the Stedelijk Museum. Participants were given the common theme of “Love making,” and I proposed this concept as a series of poetic encounters in which meaning is constantly rediscovered. In this exhibition, rather than simply presenting my work, I sought to explore the grammar of the museum as an exhibition space. During my field research, I focused on the distinction between artists and viewers within the exhibition space and the act of leaving personal belongings in the locker room—in other words, the politics of purity.

The exhibition ran for about a week, and during that time something unexpected happened. Visitors actually hung their own clothes on the hooks installed in the exhibition space. Why did visitors hang their clothes inside the gallery rather than leaving them in the cloakroom? Was it because of the few items of clothing I had hung up there beforehand? Or was it simply because they had worked up a sweat climbing the stairs from the basement lockers to the exhibition space? Or perhaps it was because, thanks to the security guards who were always on duty, the exhibition space seemed like a relatively ‘safe place’ to store their belongings?