OPENING 'EGLĖ BUDVYTYTĖ & ESPACE AYGO: A WOMB OF THINGS TO BE AND A TOMB OF THINGS THAT WERE'

10.10.2026-10.01.2027
Opening 10.10.2026, 16h-20h

A Womb of Things to Be and a Tomb of Things That Were is an exhibition presenting a dialogue between the work of the Amsterdam- and Vilnius-based visual artist Eglė Budvytytė and the Brussels-based artist and designer collective Espace Aygo.

Budvytytė’s moving-image work, with its focus on the body’s entanglement with other forms of life, meets Espace Aygo’s large-scale installation, where human-made structures begin to lose their vertical stability. The exhibition asks what becomes possible when the impulse to build, grow and look upward falters and gives way to horizontality and other forms of mutual dependence.

The title of the exhibition reinterprets a line from Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (1986), in which she describes the universe as “a womb of things to be and tomb of things that were”, an ever-unfinished realm where what has been and what might still become are held closely together.

In Budvytytė’s films, this fluidity between past and future is expressed through the human body losing its separateness. As protagonists sink into forests and descend into clay deposits, they enter a process of decay and decomposition, simultaneously becoming enmeshed with wider ecological and communal systems. Espace Aygo’s collapsed architectural structures challenge vertical monumentality and instead offer something closer to a ground, a support, and a place for gathering, extending beyond the Kunsthal’s usual confines, out into the open.

This exhibition is generously supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Belgium, and Espace Aygo’s contribution has been developed in co-production with RendezVous – Brussels Art Week.

OPENING 10.10.2026, 16h–20h

Join us at Jester for the opening of A Womb of Things to Be and a Tomb of Things That Were, alongside open studios with residents Maurizio Segato, Anima Goyal and Ran De Vos. We’ve put together a full programme for the evening, with plenty of time to discover the exhibition and meet the artists.

OPEN STUDIOS

Residents Maurizio Segato, Anima Goyal and Ran De Vos will open their studios, offering a glimpse into their ongoing research, experiments and works in progress.

PERFORMANCE

Experience a performance by choreographer and performer Mar* Szydłowska, in dialogue with the exhibition A Womb of Things to Be and a Tomb of Things That Were.

FOOD, DRINKS & MUSIC

Artist and cook Nino Kooks (Antonino Triolo) will prepare food for the evening in our Jester kitchen. Drinks will be available at the bar, among others soft drinks by Palestine Drinks. A DJ set will accompany the evening.

SHUTTLE BUS

A shuttle bus will run between Brussels and Jester. It departs Brussels at 14h30 and leaves Jester for the return journey at 20h. Advance booking is recommended.

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