6-19 March, HIAP Gallery Augusta

A solo exhibition of works by Jasper Bruijns, the Dutch winner of TENT Academy Awards 2014. In addition to his award-winning short film Welterusten, the exhibition features new work created whilst the artist has been in residence at HIAP.

Opening on Friday, 6 March at 6 pm!

Welterusten (Goodnight) shows the nightly Rotterdam, a modern metropolis where light never dims and where loneliness dwells unseen in emptiness. Someone stays awake and anonymously listens, talks and encourages lost souls for a goodnight sleep. That doesn’t always work well. The night is patient and does not know what is happening, waiting for a new day.

Bruijns’s new work is based on his research on how people interact with each other in an individualistic world. Even though many people live in places surrounded by other people, one in three feel lonely from time to time. How have we come up with this disconnection? The western society offers us endless possibilities to help shape our own prisons, and isolate the individual. We love to be around other people, but often avoid creating real connections. We are together but alone.

The exhibition is organised in cooperation with TENT Rotterdam and supported by the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux and the Academy of Fine Arts.

About the artist

Jasper Bruijns graduated from AKV|St. Joost in 2014 as a documentary filmmaker. Fascinated by the medium of film, Bruijns started making short films at the age of 16 in his school for media design. Later he developed his own style of documentary filmmaking, characterised by a strong visual approach and an experimental style of observing. Bruijns’s interests lie particularly in observing human behaviour in our modern society. Themes like loneliness, dehumanisation and the 24/7 culture serve as inspiration. Bruijns currently works as a director and cinematographer.