MAR | Katoenhuis Observatory: Cosmic Cabinet

During Rotterdam Art Week, Katoenhuis presents media art exhibition "Cosmic Cabinet" featuring works of Katoenhuis community artists: Zalán Szakács, Studio den Haan, and Nick Mansveld. Cosmic Cabinet takes place in the upper space of Katoenhuis, a location that naturally feels like an observatory. Elevated above the ground, this space invites visitors to pause, look, and reflect. The idea of an observatory is closely tied to viewing—not only as seeing objects, but as experiencing and sensing. From this vantage point, the exhibition explores how we look at experiments and how artworks come into being.

Dates

19.03.2026 – 27.03.2026

Location

Katoenhuis Rotterdam

Rather than presenting only finished immersive installations, Cosmic Cabinet focuses on process. Immersive works often hide their own construction, but here the making itself is revealed. Materials, tests, and experiments are brought forward, offering a behind-the-scenes perspective on the practices of the artists working at Katoenhuis collaboratively or individually. The exhibition celebrates curiosity, trial and error, and the labour that usually remains unseen.

Zalán Szakács’s Lichtspiel (series) (2023–ongoing) reconfigures 17th-century optical instruments using contemporary tools such as LED light, lenses, motors, and 3D printing. Inspired by a period when science and mysticism overlapped, the installation functions as a modern wunderkammer of light, where visitors’ moving shadows become part of the work. In New Atlantis (2025), Szakács draws from historical ideas of knowledge and discovery. A rotating disc echoes the movement of the sun and moon, creating a contemplative space for introspection and wonder.

Studio den Haan’s Capella (2023) translates an astronomical phenomenon into an intimate experience. Inspired by the star Capella, whose shimmering colours are caused by atmospheric refraction, the installation allows visitors to observe the behaviour of light as it interacts with optics and materials up close. Nick Mansveld’s Binnenweg (2015) film installation engages with spectatorship playing with mirror illusion in the urban context to introduce a reimagining of space and time in a 2D image.

Drawing inspiration from historical cabinets of curiosities, Cosmic Cabinet brings together past and future ways of seeing. Visitors are invited to view, admire, and experience the works as part of a time journey—moving between cosmic imagination, historical knowledge, and contemporary experimentation.

Tickets