Erica Boom (from the Netherlands) – in short – attempts to find words. She is interested in similarity, in the connections between naming, words and languages. In doing this, could she be looking for universal rules, whatever the language? In all events, confluences sometimes appear suddenly in her works... like miracles. Sometimes we can hardly believe that what she presents from her ‘archives’ is even true. She shows certain signs without any direct linguistic explanation. It is only a Languagestream flowing throughout Europe. Where is the source? And how can we recognize it, understand it? Can we really understand each other? Especially when we come from different places, from different countries and... languages. And as Wittgenstein (that Austrian-born philosopher who spent much of his life in England) says ‘If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world’.

Kamila Wielebska/Remco de Blaaij

Towards Confluence, HISK, Gent 2009

Towards Confluence was an international group exhibition made in collaboration between the Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunsten (HISK, Gent, Belgium) and Enough Room for Space (ERforS) and curated together by Remco de Blaaij and Kamila Wielebska. It was one of the CURATOR CURATOR series of exhibition projects presented in the space of The Higher Institute of Fine Arts from 6 February to 15 March 2009. The nine artists and two curators involved, coming from different national and political backgrounds, met in one exhibition space in order to see how, when and why things come together or why some things are separated and will never meet. We would like to take you on a journey of exploration Towards Confluence.