Underbelly

A drapery made for The Waiting Room, a group exhibition in Gand at the Kask Conservatory, forming part of the second chapter of Marion Adrian and Sungyoon Ahn’s curatorial project, Poetics of Hospitality, which grouped together three artists: Eline Harmse, Sina Hensel and Emma Cogné. The project is based on the historical context of the Het Pavillion, which was initially built to support pregnant patients when the Kask Conservatory was a hospital.

“Designer Emma Cogné often chooses materials for their physical properties and durability in the face of their environment before seeking to divert them from their original functions. With Underbelly, she has realised a drapery that deploys itself around the pavilion like a second protective skin, using dissimulation to better reveal what’s inside. Custom-sewn by hand from a winterising sail* and plastic grain sacks collected from the farm she lived on during the pandemic, this spontaneous assembly evokes the heavy curtains found in the boudoirs of bygone eras (a small room in which the lady of the house could retire to, or receive guests). By introducing this element, Cogné both transforms the pavilion into a fertile, protected space and renders it hospitable in creating conditions conducive to privacy.

“The Poetics of Hospitality is a curatorial and artistic reflection conceived like a series of three chapters interrogating the notion of hospitality and the unsaid rules that govern this universally accepted custom. The word ‘hospitality’ itself – derived from the Latin ‘hospes’, meaning both a ‘host’, who receives, and a ‘guest’, who is invited – evokes the complexity of the host/guest relationship. Departing from the pavilion’s shape, a transitional structure that questions concepts of propriety, territoriality and borders, the Poetics of Hospitality invites artists to question their link with this space as potential guests or hosts.”
– Marion Adrian & Sungyoon Ahn

*Agricultural textile issued from ‘non-woven’ fabric used to protect seedlings from the cold.