Els Dietvorst’s 2023 exhibition ADRIFT brought sculpture, drawing, installation, print, film, documentary and performance together at Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda.
Curated by Catherine Bowe and Karla Sanchez Zepeda, the exhibition formed part of a wider Irish tour of the Belgian artist’s work.
A world without secure direction
The title used drifting as a metaphor for a contemporary world experienced as unanchored and uncertain.
Dietvorst’s work examined life histories, migration, cultural difference, human desire and the position of people treated as outsiders.
Her attention often moved toward people and events that would otherwise remain unseen within dominant social narratives.
The exhibition did not isolate these concerns within one medium. Film, sculpture, drawing and performative action allowed the artist to approach the same questions through different forms of presence and documentation.
Creation as a collective and permeable process
Dietvorst described making as open to other people, ideas, living beings, the dead and neglected objects.
This approach resisted the idea of the artist as a solitary observer standing outside the lives represented.
The exhibition had been commissioned by Wexford Arts Council and supported through Irish and Flemish cultural organisations.
Its tour involved Highlanes Gallery, Wexford Arts Centre, West Cork Arts Centre and Wexford County Council.
ADRIFT assembled a broad view of Dietvorst’s practice while also introducing new work.
The exhibition’s strongest theme was not simply displacement. It concerned the relationships created when an artist remains attentive to people, objects and experiences that social systems classify as peripheral.
By allowing several media to coexist, Dietvorst made drifting visible as both vulnerability and a possible condition for encounter.