PAKT Foundation, Zeeburgerpad 53

Opening: Friday 31 October
Until 7 December 2025

Andrea Knezović & Yeşim Akdeniz

Curated and text by Àngels Miralda

I can never remember my passport number – no matter how many times in a row I need to write it down. Reaching for my backpack, zzzzzip* opendoen. There it is, flip page, find number, type it in.

When people ask me why I live in the Netherlands I always tell them it’s because I love Dutch bureaucracy. Lips turn up in a sly smile as I fill out paper documents from my home country. Done, stamp, put it in the envelope, ouch!

Finger to mouth, salty brine. Papercut straight across the thumb. White paper, black text, red stain. Cutting into the imprints of my identity – that pink identity in blue ink pressed against the beige paper of police files stored away in another continent. Straight across, cutting through who I really am.

Photograph. Eyes closed. Try again.

This exhibition is about time, the impossibility of rest in an age in which tasks pile up endlessly. It’s about maintenance – time means you need to attend to things on a monthly/weekly/daily basis. How is this doubled, tripled, when you have responsibilities towards other living beings or when you’re waiting for a visa that is always imminently expired, for a rent contract that’s always about to end. Where will we be in a years’ time, two? Security is about eliminating temporalities, finding permanence in a world based on obsoletion and subscription models that thrive on insecurity.

It’s always about stepping on a fine line – a hopscotch of possibilities. Andrea Knezović explores how tempo affects production in a newly commissioned kinetic sculpture that leaves pressured traces to gradually build up in intensity throughout the duration of the exhibition. This archive of temporality is surrounded by her signature spatial diagrams that provoke questions on our relationship to ourselves, community, space, and contemporary politics.

Yeşim Akdeniz presents a series of fabric sculptures that contend with the performativity of choice and the symbols of identity construction in a world defined by mobility. Two voting booths are adorned with dramatic curtains recalling the stage and the spectacle. Suitcases are a recurring element in Akdeniz’s work that refer to migration and portable property along with the buttons often featured in her work that create a physical connection between bodily dimensions and mechanical labour.

The exhibition reflects on the constant necessity to produce in a society that does not leave space to rest or room to breathe. It approaches topics of care, labour, and queer and migrant identities through a feminist lens in spatial installations. It will be accompanied by a public programme that expands on the themes through the perspectives of various actors on Amsterdam’s cultural scene.

We are grateful for the generous support from: AFK, Mondriaan Funds, Brouwerij ‘t IJ

Credits:

Graphic Design: Marit van der Gevel
Technical Work: Otakar Zwaartjes
Dutch wordmaster: Falke Pisano
Photography: Bart Lunenburg
Space & Facilities: PAKT Foundation
Initiation: Doris Benhalegua Beri