Helen Anna Flanagan

Time is deeply ingrained in our perception and experience of it and yet completely independent from both. While time follows its course, our memory of it varies according to how we compartmentalize it. The two-year program just completed by the ten artists featured in this exhibition is a paradigmatic case. This is not entirely due to the unprecedented differences between 2019 and 2020, a year that has so far been dictated by the coronavirus pandemic. So much has happened since their first days at the HISK, that it seems as if time has both flicked by and been stretched out.

The exhibition title refers to the contradictions embedded in our relationship to time and how it can affect our outlook. It is no coincidence that the title also reflects the fact that this show is mostly composed of time-based works and/or pieces in which time is an essential element of their concept, elaboration or poetics. The notion that time is not simply lived in linearity is also echoed by the physical and rhythmical aspects of the expography, which unfolds a sinuous course that covers areas becoming gradually lighter or darker in the HISK's brand new space in Brussels. In a Long Blink of an Eye furthermore evokes a body language that communicates care and trust, both grown out of an intense, horizontal and frank exchange between the HISK curator and the artists during the period they worked together.

In a Long Blink of an Eye, a collection of ten artists' books and one critical volume is published on this occasion. Designed and co-edited by Luc Derycke.

Text by Daniella Geo