Carla Swerts

The work of Carla Swerts (Diest, 1992) is inspired by her experiences in the Middle East. The focus is not on the war horror, repression and terror that we often associate the region with today, but on sensory sensations aimed at nuancing the Western image of the Middle East. She translates the unexpected beauty she encounters there into images that are reflections of bodily experiences rather than realistic representations of a specific place. Although no explicit violence is shown and she adopts an aestheticising mode of interacting with her surroundings, a constant threat is palpable.

This expo brings together a selection of Swerts' work that focuses on these themes. Sometimes her finds are recorded with archaeological precision, at other times they are subject to abstraction, such as a memory reduced to its contours.

Carla Swerts is affiliated with the Faculty of Architecture and Art at Hasselt University and the FRAME research group (PXL-MAD - UHasselt).