“So simple: the appearance of night in a room full of strangers, the maze of hallways wandered as in films, the fracturing of bodies from darkness into light, sounds of engineseasing into the distance” 
--David Wojnarowicz 

TURNING SNAKES INTO GOLD draws on the desire of manifesting a home in unfamiliar surroundings. Jakob van Klinken proposes alchemy as a metaphor for homemaking. This way we get to the essence of the matter: the transformation of something commonly unwanted into something we deeply desire.  In the making of a home we self-talk to keep ourself calm: “It’s just going to be a few more days, then it’s done” we would say. Even though stories like these might hold no truth, they still have value: they hold us to push through. This is how we survive the long, stressful processes of finding a house, moving, executing bureaucratic procedures, and all the unforeseen complications that arise herein. These processes don’t just take time, they feel insurmountable. So how do we get through them? Van Klinken, inspired by alchemy’s incorporation of fantastical beasts into its problem-solving, poses that the stories we tell ourselves can create a bridge from the mess around us to our desired fantasy home. 

The series of dough sculptures exhibited were made to generate stories and serpentine beasts for homemaking alchemy. We need such stories more and more, as settling and home-making is becoming increasingly difficult with rising sea-levels and economic turmoil. 

Jakob van Klinken (DE, 1998) is a Greek-Dutch artist who researches how desire shapes our surroundings. He has a Bachelors in Fine Arts from ArtEZ, Arnhem, NL, and master's from KABK, The Hague, NL. He produces sculpture, painting and video-work, and often brings in collaborators from outside the field of art. 

Opening: 6/1, 19:00-22:00
Duration of exhibition: 6-21/1/23 

Two Thirds Project Space,
Themistokleous 42, Exarcheia,
5th Floor, #2