Flowing Forms - Landhuis Oud Amelisweerd
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Flowing Forms explores how contemporary glass art reflects the fluid and vibrant nature of culture. The exhibition is held in the wallpaper rooms of Landhuis Oud Amelisweerd in the Netherlands, alongside Europe’s best-preserved collection of Chinese hand-painted wallpapers from the Qing Dynasty—an exceptional testament to centuries of cultural exchange.
The exhibition demonstrates how images, artisanal techniques, and ideas are constantly shifting through time and space. Glass itself—fragile yet durable—serves as a powerful metaphor for migration, renewal, and the connection between tradition, nature, and our ever-changing sense of belonging. Flowing Forms takes this historical resonance as its starting point to explore how contemporary glass art embodies the same sense of movement, fragility, and constant transformation. Glass, once liquid and red-hot, now solid yet always malleable, carries within it the story of how materials and meanings migrate through time and space. From antique beads and stained-glass windows to experimental sculptures and site-specific installations: glass reflects a world that is constantly in motion. The sixteen Dutch and international artists employ a wide range of traditional and innovative techniques, including glassblowing, kiln casting, fusing, cold working (cutting, engraving, sandblasting), laminating, and light projection. Many works integrate natural elements and references to the country house’s cultural heritage, creating layered dialogues between interior and exterior, nature and culture, past and present. In the historic rooms where Chinese hand-painted wall hangings meet Dutch architectural heritage, these glass artworks open new conversations about identity, memory, and the tension between local traditions and global exchange. They invite us to reflect on the fragile balance between what we preserve and how culture, like nature itself, continues to grow, transform, and renew itself. Visitors are invited to wander freely through the spaces, follow the play of light across glass surfaces, and experience how the works respond to the atmosphere of the house and the surrounding landscape. In this way, Flowing Forms reminds us that culture, like nature, endures through flow, collision, and regeneration—a fragile yet constantly transforming process in which the forces that connect us never come to a standstill. Curator: Selena Yang Deelnemende kunstenaars
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