Pennings Foundation is proud to invite you to the special  solo presentation of Risk Hazekamp: Social Dissolution of the West.

The project is based on a romantic theme from the childhood of the Hague visual artist Risk Hazekamp. She follows the route of her aunt and uncle, who met in 1968 during the Olympic Games in Mexico. Both were part of the Dutch Olympic team, he as a rower of the Holland Eight and she as a diving female. But besides the Olympic dream, there was another reality. Ten days before the opening ceremony of the Olympics, student protests ended in a bloodbath.

The exhibition consists of analog photography, murals and installations, combined with archive material.

How do we now, fifty years later, experience the events of the turbulent year 1968, for example from the perspective of 'decolonial' thinking?

What context do we see when we look at images?

Risk Hazekamp (1972) was educated at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam and the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. She lives and works in The Hague and teaches at AKV|St.Joost  in Breda.

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Social Dissolution of the West was inspired by a romantic episode that took place during Risk Hazekamp's childhood years.  Hazekamp follows the route of her uncle and aunt, who first met each other during the Olympic Games of 1968 in Mexico City.  They were both participating for the Dutch Olympic team, he rowing the eight for Holland, she a platform diver.

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Social Dissolution of the West concentrates on the reversal of perspectives. It poses questions about the position of the person watching and the person being watched. Are we able to recognize the limitation of our own views? Are we able to think outside the narrative that is presented to us?

How can we, today, understand the Olympic Games of 1968 from the perspective of decolonization? What exactly happened when the Olympic flame was taken from “Old Europe” to its former colony Mexico and the organizing committee decided that “the torch should follow the course of Columbus's first voyage to The New World”?

The solo presentation of Risk Hazekamp at  Pennings Foundation with its 700 square meters of exhibition space consists of analogue photography, murals and installations in combination with historic documentation. The work goes beyond the represented and shows the narrative in which we grew up as a dynamic and changeable process. Hazekamp's work is not a literary account of events, but a search for encounters in time and/or place.

Social Dissolution of the West was made possible by SOMA Mexico, Mondriaan Fund, and Stroom The Hague.

About Risk Hazekamp:

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Risk Hazekamp (1972) lives and works as an artist in The Hague. After studying at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam and at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, Hazekamp had solo exhibitions in different European galleries and showed work at international fairs of contemporary art such as Paris Photo, Art Cologne, Liste Basel, and Arco Madrid. In 2010, Risk Hazekamp decided to stop participating in commercial art fairs. Hazekamp is tutor Visual Art and Arts & Humanity at the AKV | St. Joost Academy in Breda.

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