Dear, — Annabelle

Dear, 2020
series of site-specific murals
developed for TENT, Rotterdam (NL)

Language often has a supporting role in exhibitions. The titles, wall texts and supporting publications provide lenses through which we can interpret the exhibited work. ‘Dear,’ is a series of textual work, that plays with this ‘supporting’ quality of language.

The series of site-specific murals add a narrator to the exhibition ‘Wat ik je nog wilde zeggen’ at TENT, whose unfolding story deliberately (mis)leads. The murals are based on the principle of the unreliable narrator, a term used in literary theory for a narrator who deceives the reader by offering them a misleading perspective on the story. As a reader, you remain caught in that vision of events until you gradually discover that the narrator cannot be trusted. The series grew and changed during the course of the exhibition, responding to the works on view.