Cities and Eyes: Curated by Anouk Focquier

  • Cities and Eyes, curated by Anouk Focquier, features seven media works exploring urban environments through a variety of lenses. The title 'Cities and Eyes' is inspired by the book 'Le Città Invisibili' written by Italian author Italo Calvino in 1972. 'Le Città Invisibili' was originally published by Giulio Einaudi Editore.

     

    “Despina can be reached in two ways: by ship or by camel. The city displays one face to the traveler arriving overland and a different one to him who arrives by sea.”


    Featured Artists: Nicky Assmann + Rotor (NL), Younes Baba Ali (MA/FR/BE), Li Binyuan (CN), Seth Cluett (USA), Alice Brunnquell (FR) + Pierre Coric (BE), Sky Hopinka (USA), Laurie-Anne Jaubert (FR), Diego Lama (PE/BE) and Jonas Vansteenkiste (BE).

     

    Production assistant: Laureline Soubry

     

    This project received the generous support of Fridman Gallery, Berserk Art Agency, Columbia University, Flanders House New York, Consulado General del Perú en Nueva York, Villa Albertine, Consulate General of the Netherlands.

  • Events
  • Nicky Assmann + Rotor

  • Nicky Assmann creates sensory installations exploring light, color, and motion, merging art and science to examine climate change and perception through unique materials and natural phenomena.

     

    Rotor, founded by Eelco Ottenhof and Joris Strijbos, crafts immersive sound installations using rotating sources and modular synthesizers to explore spatial acoustics and ambient noise.

     

    The film Acorán by visual artist Nicky Assmann and experimental sound collective Rotor captures a hypnotic journey through the clouds of Mount Teide on Tenerife, with the Sun as a central character. Filmed using an infrared filter, the resulting intense red visuals evoke a volcanic landscape ablaze, symbolizing Earth's current turbulence.

  • Younes Baba-Ali

    Younes Baba-Ali, Without Negotiation, 2018, Video, 9'36", single channel.

     

    Younes Baba-Ali

    Younes Baba-Ali is a multidisciplinary artist who critiques societal norms and ecological concerns through installations in unconventional spaces, using irony, readymades, and technology to provoke reflection.

     

    In Without Negotiation (2018), Baba-Ali explores the intricate ecosystem of ambulant vendors—students, refugees, and graduates alike—thriving on negotiation and resilience in. Moving through the city by taxi, he maps this informal economy, where bargaining defines survival, far removed from the polished spaces of the city’s art venues. 

     

     

     

  • Originally, the “caroussa” was an object with a specific function: to spread and sell CDs broadcasting Koranic verses in the...

    Younes Baba-Ali, Carroussa Sonore, 2012, Sound Performance in public space.

     

    Originally, the “caroussa” was an object with a specific function: to spread and sell CDs broadcasting Koranic verses in the streets. This concept stems from the intuition that sound, both oral and musical, is an interactive material that shapes the physical space. Carroussa Sonore is a curatorial and artistic project by Younes Baba Ali, where this intuition becomes awareness. Made from salvaged materials, the cart is equipped with a battery, an audio player, an amplifier, and speakers.

     

    CREDITS: Younes Baba Ali, Carroussa Sonore, 2025, Courtesy of the artist and Express Newark.

  • Li Binyuan

    Li Binyuan uses his body in performances and videos to disrupt norms, challenge perceptions, and explore freedom, social values, and the boundaries between individuals and society.
  • Li Binyuan's Amphitheater transforms an urban landscape into a site of quiet resistance and poetic intervention. Perched upside down atop a narrow column, the artist's vulnerable posture contrasts starkly with the monumental overpasses that encircle him. Li Binyuan, Amphitheater, 2012, video, 3’45”, single channel.
  • Alice Brunnquell + Pierre Coric

  •  Alice Brunnquell  is a filmmaker blending fiction and documentary through experimental narratives. Pierre Coric integrates navigation, programming, and printmaking in installations and performances that reveal hidden systems shaping daily life. 

     

    The Ways We Are it (TWWAI) is a multidisciplinary project by Alice Brunnquell and Pierre Coric. A small collection of stories about the ways humans, and other beings modify and inhabit the landscape in a major city.

     

    CREDITS: Supported by The Flemish Authorities, developed in the framework of a residency at Residency Unlimited, Brooklyn (USA). 

  • Seth Cluett
    Seth Cluett, Paradiegesis, 2024, Audiovisual performance, 20'00"
     

    Seth Cluett

    Seth Cluett is a sound artist and composer whose work blends immersive soundscapes with performance and installation, exploring perception, memory, and sensory awareness. Using advanced technologies like spatial audio, he investigates sound's connection to place, resonance, and the temporal nature of listening.

     

    Paradiegesis is a performance consisting of video, amplified objects, and loudspeakers exploring the boundary between urban green space and the surrounding property and infrastructure.

  • Sky Hopinka
    Sky Hopinka
    Sky Hopinka

    Sky Hopinka

    Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) creates video, photo, and text work exploring Indigenous homeland, language, and culture. Born in Ferndale, WA, he studied and taught chinuk wawa in Portland, OR, focusing on language as a vessel for cultural expression.

     

    Hopinka’s video Mnemonics of Shape and Reason (2021) traverses the memory of a place and space visited by the artist. Employing an original syntax of storytelling, the artist interweaves scattered and reassembled landscapes with layers of captured audio, poetic text, and music. A rhythmic account of the spiritual implications of colonial plunder, Hopinka’s fluid reflections transmute ideas of spiritual malleability tied to land, sky, sea, myth, place, and personhood.

     

    CREDITS: Commissioned by ICA Miami, Camera, Sound, Edit: Sky Hopinka, Text: Flesh and Ghost.

  • Laurie-Anne Jaubert

    Laurie-Anne Jaubert is a French artist exploring art, technology, and perception through video, sound, and performance. Her immersive works blur reality and the virtual, inviting introspection on memory, identity, and time. Influenced by philosophy and poetry, she crafts sensory experiences that reconnect audiences with personal and collective narratives.

     

    Her work, Tabula Rasa (animated video, 3'30" , single channel) is an animated short film that navigates the boundaries between physical and virtual spaces. Through a first-person perspective, the film invites viewers on a seamless journey where exhibition objects—projectors, screens, and audio devices—become beacons for the imagination, connecting the tangible and the digital.

  • Diego Lama

    Diego Lama, Theme for a Western Imaginary, 2020, Sculpture and vinyl record, 3’00”

     

    Diego Lama

    Diego Lama is a Peruvian audiovisual artist whose work critically examines power, art, and technology to explore societal structures and human interactions. He interrogates historical narratives and ideologies, provoking conversations about justice and inequality.

     

    Theme for a Western Imaginary (2020) delves into the history of Comet 67P/C-G, intertwining scientific discovery with the mythological narratives that have emerged around it. The work traces the comet’s path through space and time, highlighting how its discovery coincided with Peru’s land reform, a pivotal moment that reshaped the country’s postcolonial social fabric.

     

  • In De Falso a Legal en una Toma, Diego Lama’s video draws an unsettling connection between two seemingly disparate spaces...

    Diego Lama, De Falso a Legal en una Toma, 2015, Video, 4’04”, single channel.

     
    In De Falso a Legal en una Toma, Diego Lama’s video draws an unsettling connection between two seemingly disparate spaces in Lima: one of the most dangerous streets in the city, where documents are forged and fraud thrives, and the nearby Palace of Justice, the institution tasked with upholding the country’s laws.
  • Jonas Vansteenkiste

  • Jonas Vansteenkiste explores physical and psychological space through installations, video, sculpture, photography, and drawing. His works, influenced by the concept of Denkraum, invite viewers to engage with personal and collective narratives, offering opportunities for reflection on space, memory, and emotional resonance.

     

    A Note On Haussmann reflects on the duality of urban transformation through the lens of a Wallace Fountain, one of Paris’s iconic public drinking fountains. Drawing on the “Haussmannization” of the city in the 19th century—a modernization that displaced residents and enabled state control—the video juxtaposes the fountain’s beauty with the threat posed by bees and wasps inhabiting it.

  • About the Curator

    About the Curator

    Curatorial Statement: 

    Anouk Focquier, founder of Berserk Art Agency, explores the intersections of politics, imagination, and public space through her curatorial practice, guided by the philosophies of Hannah Arendt and Chantal Mouffe. She views art as a critical tool for fostering dialogue, pluralism, and dissent within democratic society, emphasizing collaboration with independent artists to resist rigid frameworks and create new possibilities.

     

    Bio:

    In 2014, Anouk Focquier founded Berserk Art Agency, a nomadic platform for visual and media arts focused on artistic development, production, and networking. The agency connects audio/visual and media artists to nourish the international arts community. Anouk researches the relationship between contemporary art institutions and society, has curated various exhibitions, and co-curated the Haren Prison art integration project (2021-2023). She serves as a board member for several Belgian art institutions and is on the Flemish Arts Department's funding commission. Anouk has collaborated with HeK (CH), Museum Victoria (AUS), Berkeley University (US), and more.

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