XOHOUILLE

w-o-l-k-e • Brussels / Belgium • 2013

During a working period at W-O-L-K-E Brussels, Katherina Heil developed a spatial installation composed of found objects arranged in different constellations.

The work investigates how meaning is assigned to objects through context, definition, and cultural association, and how these attributions can be destabilised and reconfigured. By bringing together disparate materials within a shared spatial framework, established narratives and categories begin to loosen, allowing new forms of reading and interpretation to emerge.

Central to the installation is the question of how objects carry meaning not inherently, but through a collective visual and cultural vocabulary. When placed in proximity, objects begin to form relationships that generate unexpected associations, revealing how easily perception shifts between classification and imagination.

Drawing on ideas from visual theory and semiotics, the work reflects on how narratives are constructed through material and form, and how these structures can be interrupted or reassembled. In this sense, the installation operates as an open system in which meaning is continuously negotiated between object, context, and viewer.