Mountain as a Living Archive, a cross-cultural group exhibition, brings together works by Awoiska van der Molen, Müge Yılmaz, Kevin Bauer, and Zeynep Yılmaz, the exhibition repositions the mountain as a potent metaphor and a living repository of geological time, embodied memory, and collective transformation.
Mountains have long served as symbols of spirituality, power, endurance, and resistance. From early mythological depictions to contemporary interpretations, artists have engaged with mountains to explore their symbolic, material, and historical dimensions. This exhibition examines how mountains function as repositories of memory and transformation, but also as spaces for inner journeys and the pursuit of meaning.
Taking inspiration from the act of climbing, as well as the geological and emotional weight of elevation and exposure, the exhibition presents the mountain as a site of personal, communal, and historical change. It further engages with the archive as a dynamic structure, interrogating what is preserved or forgotten, and how memory lives within and beyond the landscape. The works by artists articulate a range of perspectives from meditative and ritualistic to conceptual and political, engaging themes of landscape, embodiment, and the complex traces left by human intervention.
In a city carved from water and built upon flat, reclaimed land, Mountain as a Living Archive stages an ambitious conceptual elevation, weaving together artistic perspectives into narratives of archive, memory and ecology.
Poster design by Marit van der Gevel
The project is generously funded and supported by AFK (Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst), IONA Stichting, Voordekunst, het Cultuurfonds, İKSV (Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts), Stichting Stroom, Nonspace, Framer Framed and P////AKT
