Building the Visual Mind
In the exhibition Building the Visual Mind, artist, designer and filmmaker Donna Verheijden tells new stories using old materials from Het Nieuwe Instituut’s digital archive.
Creating a virtual parallel reality, Verheijden takes visitors through the evolution of the digital collection. The 3D models and digitised glass negatives, sketches, blueprints and collection images she uses in the exhibition are a concrete representation of the relationship between archives, architecture and developing technology. Dive into this world and experience the ongoing shift from an analogue collection to an increasingly digitised archive!
Remix and re-use
In Building the Visual Mind, Donna Verheijden embarks on an artistic research project by actively remixing and creatively re-using digital heritage. She works with glass negatives (from the studio of Pierre Cuypers and others), drawings and blueprints by a wide variety of architects, plus 3D models from offices like MVRDV – recombining them from her own perspective.
Parallel to the exhibition, a programme features various activities such as knowledge sessions, workshops and guided tours. The aim of the programme is to add more depth to the exhibition and highlight the digital collection of Het Nieuwe Instituut. In this parallel programme, the exhibited works act as starting points for discussing various themes related to the creative re-use of archival material.
Building the Visual Mind is made possible in part by the Digital Heritage x Public grant scheme of the Creative Industries Fund NL and started in 2019. Building the Visual Mind was also made possible by Katsu.Pro and Boer & Van Wijk. Exhibition design: Van Leeuwenstein, Donna Verheijden.
Donna Verheijden
Donna Verheijden is a filmmaker and video artist. She sees it as her task to analyse and criticise current visual culture. Her work focuses on mass media and social media, its temptations and underlying power structures. Verheijden is represented by LI-MA international platform for media. She teaches at the ArtEZ University of the Arts in Arnhem. In 2019, she also took part in the Open Archiveprogramme in which she created an autonomous media work from the open, digital collections of Het Nieuwe Instituut and the Netherlands Institute for Image and Sound.
Exhibition ‘Building the Visual Mind’
Het Nieuwe Instituut – Gallery 3
Rotterdam
11 December 2021 – 6 March 2022
hetnieuweinstituut.nl
Photography exhibition: Joost van Ophem