Thijs Ebbe Fokkens

My practice revolves around the promise of art to be a realm like no other for contemplation. That it is a tool for thinking about the world, a device to philosophize, to wonder and also to speculate; to dream and to consider something. A constructed space for life-orientation, you could say. When I try to orient - and position - myself in (relation to) the world, I feel the need for oversight, for a perspective that is not narrow but offers a wider view, in which you can consider a lot of things simultaneously. It is this perspective that I chase in my work, in my 'constructed discoveries’: combinations of drawings, photographs, models, installations and conceptual frame, a context in which the work exists or where it derives from. They allude to scientific and religious efforts that people undertake to get a grip on the world. And echo the characteristics, visual forms, vocabularies, assumptions and promises associated with these utopian perspectives, places and moments.