Jack and Sophie / 2023 / mixed media
The sculpture depicts a moment from a dialogue I had with Sophie, a customer service AI. In the sculpture, the conversation takes the form of a pole protruding from Sophie’s mouth, which holds the object of our discussion: a costume based on Jack Dawson’s outfit in the movie Titanic.
In the film, Jack played a supporting role by helping Rose discover her own humanity. Similarly, AI can act as a supporting character to humans by providing a mirror that reflects our own selves.
3D animation, screen, wood / 2023 / 82,5 x 46,5 x 20 cm / 0:30 sec. loop / HD
An online casino worker is stuck in a loop of falling asleep during their shift.
Good Intentions / exhibition with Tine Deboelpaep for Art Au Centre in Liege / 2022
Give us a good night’s rest, we must never feel exhausted again.
Free our minds from worse-case scenarios
Guide us when we feel overwhelmed by our daily routine, and give us the strength to change
Provide us enough time, and we shall spend reconnecting with our friends
Bless us with a healthy eating pattern
Let us never be exasperated and lead us away from overreacting
Allow us to get through this week, week, after week, after week.
SkyNewsCommentsSection / 2022 / 21 hand embroidered handkerchiefs, cotton, 50x50cm, Tempo tissue box, acrylic on wood, 60x30x20cm
An oversize Tempo tissue box that contains the embroidered sentences found in the YouTube comments section of Sky News that have nothing to do with the topic of the news item.
Header text
Objects / 2022 / 6 hand-sewn polyether foam rubber, wood / 90x50x3cm
The work is a series of screens depicting moments from various documentaries.
The Castel of Helth / exhibition with Tine Deboelpaep / CAS Maastricht / 2022
“The Castel of Helth brings together works of two artists, self-proclaimed sel-care experts, and internet miners Sara Bachour and Tine Deboelpaep. They are interested in how the notion of well-being and self-care have evolved over time, especially under the influence of the dominant ‘isms’ of the day (hyper-individualism, neoliberalism, and the like). Fittigly, the title of the show takes from the 16th century treatise, which was one of the first works of popular medicine.
In The Castel of Helth, Sara and Tine have found a common visual language, drawing on art historical references and internet culture alike, and combining viral content with obscure rituals, social commentary with self-deprecating humour.
While not rid of a critical angle, the exhibition engages in a full-on flirt with the enchanting, ever-expanding universe of self care, and explores also its more ambiguous, gritty areas. The fumes of the scented candles mix with the smoke of ritual cigarettes, the beauty wax and the fish in the pond are simmering…
The Castel of Helth opens its doors to everyone in need for a dose of humor, drama, and hope.”
- CAS, Center for Artistic Sensibilities
Presentation for L’Étalage in Malpertuisplein, Maastricht / 2021 / acrylic on canvas, foam, video
During the Covid-19 healthcare crisis, there was a word resonating with insistence in many places: care. There has been a flourishing of public and private advertisement campaigns in which “care” became the underlying leitmotif. Encouraging people to take care of themselves and others. But those words sounded empty in an age in which the focus has been the individual and one’s personal happiness above everything else. So what does it mean, all of a sudden, to change the focus from one’s own belly button to someone next to you? Is taking care of oneself the same as taking care of others? And what does this word mean in a highly individualized society? Where do you find tools for caring? Everybody has different needs and ideas of well-being and self-care; this results in a multitude of solutions being offered, which makes it difficult to navigate between legitimate or profit-driven/exploitative sources. Loslaten en Toevertrouwen (Let go and entrust) is a work on the superficial image of care and its meaning in times of crisis. It is part of a series of works produced during the pandemic as a reflection on the quest for sense and spiritual guidance in the digital realm.
installation / 2021 / stitched, painted and quilted fabric / 256×175,5cm
Angela wrote a message of support under an article posted on the Facebook page of the newspaper De Limburger on the 27th of February 2021. Christophe doesn’t know Angela, yet he wants to make a romantic move and he replies to her post with a charming message, in a public setting for the “world” to see. When researching this man’s name on google, the first result is the complete book written in 1883 from Emma Hardinge Britten “NIneteenth Century Miracles a complete historical compendium of modern spiritualism”. Some of the ideas introduced by the Spiritualist movement will become popular in the New Spirituality (or New Age). A subject that interests me for its influence on individuals that are simply trying to make sense of their existence and the world through “alternative ways” like new religious movements, the self-help industry, healing and medicine guru’s, multi-level marketing organizations and so on.
installation / 2020 / acrylic on canvas, foam rubber / variable dimensions
The work is an ever growing pile of hand shaped pillows mimicking gestures of connection, compassion, agreement and unity. The gestures have been found in meditation and self help videos online.
installation / 2020 / acrylic on canvas sewn on transparent vinyl / 140x400cm
The imagery used in this work have been found on public YouTube playlists of individuals that have left “edgy” comments under the page of the dutch news broadcaster NOS. Each playlist shows the users filter bubbles, some users have several videos in common, others are more extreme and isolated but either how the web offers them a place of “comfort” for their beliefs
3D animation / 2019 / 6:10 / audio: italian / text: english subtitles / HD resolution
Click on CC box (bottom right) to turn on english subtitles
Alessandro was one of the sellers of TeleMarket: Italian art and antique tv channel in business from 1982 till 2014.
This salesman was able to create a show with only three elements: a bare room, an artwork, and himself.
These three elements are magnified in the animation: the room becomes a void permeated by Alessandro’s imagination that morphs the carpet to its rhythm.
De Hermine van Bers Beeldende Kunstprijs Editie Maastricht, 2019
Installation / 2019 / 20inch screen with loop HD video, no audio, 4:22 / embroidery on textile.
In the installation two elements are combined: footage of ReliMarkt, a store in Hoensbroek that sells and rents catholic imagery and objects, and a reproduction of the altarpiece found in the Sint Martinus church, Maastricht.
In the work, I relate the ambiguous image of two peacocks that can be seen as eyes with the ambiguous position of a religious object displaced from its original context.
documentary publication of the work Misericordeplein / 2019 / 210mmx297mm, 42 pages
” The work arose from our interest in an old, white house that felt out-of-place in the middle of a postmodern square.
After some research, we found out that it used to function as a garden house as part of the convent once located at the Capucijnenstraat.
Before the revitalization of this area, the house was in ruins. The municipality of Maastricht was planning to tear it down but the citizens didn’t want to let go of that piece of their city’s history. The only way to reach a compromise was to rebuild the house from scratch, based on the pictures from the beginning of the last century.
The temporary installation at the Misericorde Square played with this idea of historical value vs personal perspective. It consisted of three large-scale photographs, glued to wooden panels, and placed at the three entrances to the square. By changing their position relative to the work, the viewers could make the white house ‘disappear’ and ‘appear’ again.
What’s left of this work is the documentation of the moment the idea aligned with the ‘point of view’. “
Public Secrets – An Architecture of Limburg’s Visual Culture
Exhibition photos by Moniek Wegdam
Where widowed objects meet orphaned ideas
eight attitudes of heraldic lions according to Wikipedia / 2018 / paint on textile / 50×600 cm
photo credit: Michiel De Cleene
2018, Moira Expositieruimte Utrecht
Souvenir is a solo show on the effects of a disconnected relationship between the past and the present time through the works: The Stretch a collection of transitions between movie frames where you can see the computer program recomposing the time between two moments half a century apart from each other; Nothing Special a series of bad google reviews of world cultural heritage; Traveling Feet and Shadows a 360 digital photo uploaded from an individual from a place that hasn’t been mapped on Google Street View; Everyone I Have Met photo album of anthropomorphic architectonic elements encountered in the public space of Bologna, Italy; Leon Passant the rise and fall of empires represented by the different position of a heraldic lion.
installation / 2018 / 4 textile arches, 223cm x 260cm each
Savino is a work dedicated to a family friend who, in his 50s’, started a personal quest for spirituality and, since then, has been sharing deep quotes daily on his social media.
The structure is based on the interior design of the cult EnlightenNext.
video series / 2018 / HD, various lengths, loop
In these short films, we witness a computer program trying to make a transition between two video fragments shot in the same location but with a half-century in between them.
The first frame of every transition is taken from digitized holiday videotape from the 60s, which I obtained from a family friend; a woman who had the chance and privilege to travel the world before the dawn of mass tourism. The last frame in the transition is from present-day found footage from the same location. Most of these places have now become tourist hotspots.
By instructing the computer to fill the gap between these two moments a lot of flaws and glitches emerge, but also new compositions and connections, reminding us of our human efforts to make sense of change and time.
printed pictures in photo album / 2017 / 30cm x 31cm, 60 pages
Photo album of anthropomorphic architectonic elements encountered in the public space of Bologna, Italy.
animation / 2017 / nokia 530 with orange phone case, video loop
animation / 2017 / broken samsung galaxy tab 7”, video loop
video / 2017 / 19’59” (loop) / audio:- / text: english / HD resolution /
The video is a collection of Google Maps reviews of popular tourist destination.
94 digital images / 2017 / variable dimensions
The 360 view pictures show locations that are not mapped on Google Street. Due to the nature of 360 view photos, the body of the photographer is filtered out and only feet or a shadow remain.
Look at me and see what I could not (yet) see
digitalized hand-drawn animation / 2017
photo credit: Peter Cox
Installation / 2017 / three wooden panels with picture printed on vinyl / 275cm x 122cm x 150cm
Collaborative research on the white house of Misericordeplein with Gladys Zeevaarders.
3D animation / 2016 / 10’10” / audio: –
The Hyperuranion is the magical world of ideas, where all things invented on the globe from the beginning of time can be found, including fire, the wheel and the toilet brush.
animation / 2017 / ink on paper/ 9x9x4.5cm
“The polysemy and resulting from its universality of a lion has made it a prolific symbol exploited by both: religious and secular iconography throughout the ages. Lions were also repeatedly used as heraldic supporters.
Sara started observing the shifting positions they assumed in heraldic shields. the resulting, meticulously drawn series Lion Passant, presents various facets of a lion.
The cycle of activity of the animal, from awakening to falling asleep reflects the fate of historic empires seizing authority only to become overturned by another rising force.” -Alicja Melzacka
screenprint on t-shirt / 2016
After asking a few people to draw a brand they liked and/or could remember, I’ve printed the materialization of their ideas on t-shirts.
installation / 2017 / wood, plexiglass, led light / 85x25x15cm
“The oversized alarm clock lurking from the nooks of the exhibition space resembles an object from a dream, which haunts a perceiver even after the awakening.
Sara’s repetitive encounters with a clock indicating a peculiar moment in time (22:22) resulted in the emergence of this openwork.
Night waves is an attempt at transmitting a pure experience – it is supposed to evoke an uncanny feeling close to daydreaming, rather than an informed response.”-Alicja Melzacka
Book of collages on paper / 2015 / 30 x 20 cm / below: 8 of 72 portraits
Child models are separated from the commercial context of a toy advertisement magazine.
This process in one magazine resulted in a total of 72 portraits.
conceptual dj-set / 2015 / duration: 40”
Highs and Lows is a collaboration with Joep Hinssen.
The work consists of a live DJ-set where a DJ is mixing and dividing popular songs between a speaker mounted high on a wall and a speaker mounted low on a wall.
The lyrics of the pop-songs all use the word high (or up, above, rise, etc.) or low (or down, below, etc.) as main metaphors.
The songs are thematically divided between the speakers.
multi channel audio installation / 2015 / duration: 13′ 05” / loop
Colonna sonora in italian means soundtrack (Colonna=column, Sonora=sonic)
The highest speaker plays fragments of songs about being High, Up, Above, Rise or on the Ceiling.
The middle speaker plays fragments of songs on being in the Middle, in the Center, In Between, Halfway.
The lowest speaker play fragments on being on the Floor, Down or Low.
The speaker do not play contemporaneously.
This work is about the relevance of music as a pillar, an everyday support of emotions, and the strong relation between the physicality of the message and its metaphor.
video / 2015 / 11’59” (loop) / audio: italian / subtitles: english / HD resolution / below: installation view of the video Fable during the graduation show Eyes Adjusting To Light / measurements projection: 356cm x 200cm
The video Fables is telling the stories about how and why animals have turned into household objects.
performance-installation / 2015 / duration: variable / audio: english
After researching the ASMR phenomenon (Autonomous sensory meridian response) Felix Dorer and I developed this installation/performance. Behind a wall, a performer will whisper through a perforated surface a story. The story is a new genesis; where the listener is the creator of the whole world, they just forgot who they were.
installation / 2015
Education starts from a collaboration with Joep Hinssen.
We showed on a white display three common objects and their relative toy versions. A Bosch drill next to a Bosch drill toy.
A Gardena shovel next to a Gardena shovel toy.
A Leifheit mop next to a Leifheit mop toy. The work is a visual reflection on marketing, family dynamics, and the tools of labor.
installation / 2015 / projected video stills on windows
A picture of a landscape is projected on blinded windows, giving an illusion of an outside world.
photo series / 2014 / 15 photos, dimension: variable print sizes
Zoo it yourself is a vintage Tupperware toy found at a second-hand store.
Performance with public participation / 2014 / below: performance in Intro in Situ, 14 January 2014, Maastricht
In this performance, I read the future with credit cards.
video / 2014 / language audio: italian / english subtitles / duration: 1′ 05”
audio and text / 2013 / duration : variable / below: 1 of 4 poetries
Rhetorical expressions and metaphors are cut out of a political speech.
The collage of sentences results in political poetry.
And tonight I’m asking you to join me to walk
the ones who woke up at night hearing that voice telling them that life could be better
for the richness of this life
freedom
you did it because it was what you had to do
driving home late from that second job
or standing there and watch the gas pump at $50 and still going
with a realtor told they’ll just sell your house you gotta take a big loss
in those moments you knew that this just wasn’t right
but what can you do?
except work harder
do with less
trying to stay optimistic
hug your kids a little longer
maybe spending little more time praying that tomorrow will be a better day
this isn’t something we have to accept
the gift of unconditional love made permanent impressions on our souls
all the walls and legislation in the world will never heal this world like a loving hearts and arms and mothers and fathers
everyday dad gave Mom a rose
that she’d put on your bedside table
that’s how she found out what happened on the day my father died
she went looking for him because that morning there was no rose
those weren’t the easiest of days
is both how we live our lives and why we live our lives
it’s when we go to work in the morning and see everybody else on the block doing the same thing
hope and change had a powerful appeal but tonight I’ll ask a simple question
shouldn’t feel that way now
but you don’t want to go to hell too
sometimes failing
sometimes succeeding
but always striving
it’s about dreams
usually doesn’t work out exactly as you might have imagined
but today the time has come to turn the page
to forget about what might have been and to look ahead to what can be
not themselves
not on each other
look around you
these aren’t strangers
to begin to slow the rise of the oceans
Sculpture with ready-made objects / 2014 / four white shelves, 110x26x5 cm each, three plastic pigs toys
acrylic on wooden panel and light sign / 2014 / dimention panel: 150 x 200cm