Built Homecoming

The house of Aldo and Hannie van Eyck

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Abstract

'Built Homecoming' presents the house of Aldo and Hannie van Eyck through a series of vitrines. These eight display cases capture special corners of the house, including the objects that populate these places. Through an arrangement of selected films, interior images, archival material, and artefacts from their home archive, the exhibition invites visitors to rediscover their work and ideas, while engaging with the complexities and implications of their approach to architecture and culture, particularly in relation to notions of Westernness and Eurocentricity. The choice of vitrines is crucial in this respect. Vitrines are a classic means of display, but they are also highly ambiguous: paradoxically, they are instruments of isolation and objectification, even as they provide protection and a temporary home for the selected materials. They regulate access and visibility, control the visitor’s gaze and frame the interpretation of the objects, ultimately shaping the narratives that surround them. The exhibition aims to critically rethink this framing, in order to reverse the objectifying gaze and allow for the relativity and reciprocity advocated by the Van Eycks.