10dence platform - PeepShow Expressions
The 10dence platform PeepShow Expressions exhibition features work from an international group of artists. Unlike a traditional exhibition, viewing this will be an interactive endeavor presenting multiple and differing types of viewing. The nature of the unusual set-up invites curiosity and creates an interactive dynamic between the arts and the public. It allows passers-by to engage in new pieces of art, delighting in the surprise of an art intervention. The ‘PeepShow Expressions’ exhibition will take place at De Prinsenhof - Zilverhof 34b - 9000 in the city of Ghent, Belgium from October 16 till 25, 2026. The opening of this exhibition will take place on Saturday October 17 from 15.00. The ‘PeepShow Expressions’ exhibition project is a collaborative initiative from 10dence Platform - co-curated by Ron Weijers and Frans van Viegen.
Participating artists: Marleen Dewulf - B, Evelyne Dominault - F, Sander Groen - NL, SaÏd Hammouch - M-B, Anika Hochstenbach - NL, Bernd Kalusche - D, Margreet Kilian † - NL, Paul Lorenz † - USA, Mishmash - NL, Frans van Viegen - NL, Ron Weijers - NL - Heleen van Zantvoort - NL
The PeepShow Expressions concept has stimulated the imagination of people from all walks of life for centuries. Our setup of the PeepShow Expressions exhibition focuses on the rich history and available reference materials of image making and photography related. Introducing contemporary devices that make “peeping” for the public possible in an interactive manner using multiple ways to express their borderless imaginations created by the participating artists related to this concept. Multiple ways of expression non-regular, differing, refreshing, innovative, unusual, as well as historical like optical boxes (Boîte d'optique), Camera obscura (La chambre noire), Stereo graphoscope, Praxinoscope theatre, Phenakistiscope, Single-channel video and video installations as well as peepbox diaramas and anything else the creative mind of an artist could cough up brainstorming on the concept.
The camera was invented as a device for photographing still and moving images; cameras can thus be called peep media. The camera obscura, an ancestor of the camera as we know it, is an utterly dark box (or room) with a pinhole in one of its walls, to cast an image of the outside scene on the opposite wall. Later, the pinhole was replaced by a lens, and the box became more compact, reaching a size that made it portable. Another visual device with a structure that reversed the camera obscura was used for viewing pictures through a lens: the peep box or peepshow. Many formats for peepshows were devised, and they became a popular form of entertainment. Variations on peep media include optical devices such as the microscope and telescope, equipment such as the stereoscope for three-dimensional viewing of pictures, and the Kinetoscope and other equipment for creating motion pictures. The invention and widespread adoption of these devices supported the birth of new pictures, images never seen before, and gave rise to countless styles. Some peep shows were precursors of toy theatres, with movable scenes and paper figurines, popular in the 19th century. They can also be seen as predecessors to optical toys like Chinese fireworks, the diorama, the stereoscope and the magic lantern. Peep media have formed not just the media environment around us today but also the formal conditions for photography and video imaging. With this exhibition, we explore the genealogy of peep media and the gaze, as it is carried on today. 10dence platform describes the exhibition project PeepShow Expressions as an exhibition like no other as well as a voyeuristic installation which traces multiple transformations of identity through ritualistic encounters showcasing a range of different mediums, with no piece the same. Within this exhibition, the voyeuristic titillation of peep shows is matched by the myriads of fantasy worlds entered into by a single artist repeatedly inhabiting absurd identities whose lives are confined to the duration of a performance. It will feature photographic installations, short videos, projected hand-made stop motion animation, small sculptural objects and much more. The exhibition is aimed at celebrating the value and power of transformation and fantasy and enticing the viewer to partake in that as a means of drawing new ways of seeing themselves and the world around them.
