“We keep trying to close narrative and perceptual loops, and reality becomes the decor to that. We convince ourselves it’s reality, but it’s usually our own story, pushed as fact. Personally and collectively, the most privileged story becomes the real one.”
Alida van Gool is a Rotterdam-based visual artist working across printed image assemblies, installation, video and online contexts. Her practice examines how inherited modes of looking produce and stabilize reality — and constructs situations in which that mechanism becomes briefly visible.
Her work draws on photographic material from Western image traditions, operating at the intersection of the cognitive science of perception and the political and feminist analysis of image culture. Her current research projects — Studies in Organization, Nelly Is Looking for Closure, FLAT_BED and Alida has a Hobby — each approach the same question from a different angle.
