Vesshcell
2023
Mixed media
Variable dimensions
Courtesy of SERAPIS and Horst Arts & Music
As part of the ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ group exhibition curated by Evelyn Simons and produced by Margot Bossy at Asiat Park for Horst Arts & Music festival
05.05 – 30.07.23, Brussels
Photo by Eline Willaert
Vesschell is born out of the idea of rebirthing materials. It refers to a vessel (a container), a cell (that exists through symbiosis and repetition), and to a shell (a protective new skin for an existing pavilion). Working with discarded big bags, truck tarp, reused plastic foil, recycled merchandising meshes, and cotton on which these textures have been printed, the construction materializes the logistics that keep the transport routes of our globalized society afloat.
Established in 2014, SERAPIS is a hybrid art, design and fashion collective based in Athens, Greece. It creates work inspired by the aura of the oceans and the industries related to the sea. The brand aims towards an expansion of the boundaries of artistic production and distribution, and functions like a multimedia ocean-themed novel, a contemporary seascape.
For its commission at Asiat, the worlds of the sea and the land were brought together. Deadstock fabric from former collections inspired by nautical imagery were sown together with packaging materials from construction industries in Belgium. The labour often invisibilized, the hidden stories of the people who make this global network possible, are impregnated in the upcycled materials. Marks, creases, rips, tags, faded colours: they all pay a tribute to the trajectories that these materials have travelled, to the hands through which they have passed. Celebrating the idea of networks, coproduction and collaboration in different phases through time and space; everyone who has contributed to the making of Vesschell has signed and tagged its floor and roof.
