Passage
Z33, Hasselt

Part of the group show 'Modelling Life'

March 30th - August 24th 2025

In Passage, a new commission created for Z33, Christiane Blattmann has taken the simple form of a key as the basis for a new series of sculptures. Blattmann’s installation employs materials taken from our built environment: steel, aluminium, fencing, plastic. These industrial materials are paired with softer materials such as stitched cotton, cardboard, or pigmented wax. Passing through the gallery, we encounter forms that move between model and architecture, entrypoint and obstacle.

Passage is characterized by providing both access and obstacles. Like a ‘rite of passage’ — a ritual defining the ending and beginning of a phase in life —Blattmann’s installation becomes an enactment of growing into the world. True to life, Passage does not present us with a clear linear progression, but a room full of stops and starts, a nonsequential and textured narrative flow. From architecture, to model, to symbol and back again.

— Kevin Gallagher