Thinkings Tools proudly presents Material Revolts: Ecosystems against Empire, an exhibition by the Ghanese visual Artist Kelvin Haizel at FOMU Antwerp.

In 2024, the Thinking Tools research group (Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp) invited the visual artist Kelvin Haizel (b. 1987, Ghana) for a three-month residency in Antwerp. The results of that residency are now on display in an exhibition at the FOMU.

Kelvin Haizel’s work focuses on the material conditions of photography, specifically those of 19th-century albumen prints. Invented around 1850 and in use until the early 20th century, this printing technique made it possible to translate the exquisite sharpness of the glass negative into an equally detailed print. The technique took its name from the use of albumin (egg white), which was applied to smooth out the rough texture of the paper onto which the photograph was to be printed. However, the addition of this organic material means that these prints are subject to constant transformation.

Behind the solid appearance of the albumen print, moulds, bacteria, and other micro-organisms are constantly at work. It is on this deep, intimate, and almost invisible labour that Haizel focuses. Through microscopic examination, he records the traces of these underlying chemical transformations and integrates them into his reproduced version of the original image. For him, photographs are living matter, not objects frozen in time.

The exhibition takes its starting point from 10 portraits, selected from an album by the Belgian photographer Jacques Edouard van den Bemden dating from 1885. The portraits depict Congolese men, women and children who populated a so-called ‘human zoo’ during the World’s Fair in Antwerp. By focusing on the material conditions of these images, Haizel undermines any unequivocal interpretation of them. His intervention aims to break through entrenched interpretations of these images and to liberate the photographically fixed bodies from their captivity.