To conclude his residency at Be-Part and rhizome_, Thomas Nolf (Kortrijk, °1986, lives and works in Ghent) will open his temporary studio to visitors on the 9th of March. At 3pm, Thomas Nolf and Barbara De Coninck will discuss his work, but the public is also welcome to engage in conversation with the artist.
During the lockdown, Thomas Nolf relived his childhood dream of becoming a pilot. He installed the latest version of Microsoft Flight Simulator on his computer and embarked on a virtual journey from Brussels to Andalusia, the region where he would do an art residency at Arteventura in 2020.
Arriving in Spain, he remembered the slogan As Real as it Gets, written on the box of Flight Simulator 1998. This inspired him to seek out people who - like himself - did not become pilots, but still found a way to be as close to their dream as possible. Thomas Nolf went plane spotting around Seville airport and visited a man who had built a Boeing cockpit in his attic room.
Thomas has since continued working on this project in various places around the world. During the residency at Be-Part/rhizome_, Thomas got to work on his images, sound recordings, videos and photographed around London's Heathrow Airport.
Extra Muros: rhizome_
2
8500 Kortrijk
From 14h00 until 18h
Artist talk starts at 15h
Free
THOMAS NOLF graduated as a master of photography at KASK in Ghent in 2018. His photography was included in exhibitions such as Next Generation Please at BOZAR in Brussels (2016) and Photobook Belge at FOMU in Antwerp (2019). As a result of a 4-year project in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nolf published the book Peculiar Artifacts in Bosnia & Herzegovina: An Imaginary Exhibition by Art Paper Editions. In 2020, Thomas Nolf won the Stimulus competition.
BARBARA DE CONINCK, licentiate in Romance philology, directed Jan Fabre's company, Troubleyn vzw, from 1995 to 2001. From 2002 to 2018, she was artistic director of his studio and of international exhibitions (including Musée du Louvre, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Hermitage St Petersburg). Since 2017, she publishes on contemporary art in the art magazine GLEAN (formerly HART) and writes for catalogues. She is a contributor to radio KLARA/Pompidou. She also handles the publications of the Flemish Architecture Institute. De Coninck is co-screenwriter of Luc Vrydaghs' documentary Thank God for the Gift about Jan Hoet (2024).