Background information ‘There’s always more going on than you think’

The key question is what this tells us about who we are. There’s always more going on than you think explores how contemporary artists engage with human aspects such as intimacy, physicality, memory and rituals in today’s biotechnological world. The works in this exhibition reflect on this growing interconnectedness, and on the feelings this evokes in us.

Silvia Gatti and Thomas Kuijpers focus on digital, data-driven systems. Here, the body acts as an interface, and the boundary between human and machine (partly) dissolves. Maja Klaassens and Natasja Alers view the everyday body as a place of transformation and desire, where manipulation and control are at odds with one another. Marenne Welten and Krystel Geerts on the other hand play with our perception of physical reality, and the ways in which the body learns to navigate, absorb and react. They work from an almost physical resistance, scraping, pulling and pressing until a new image emerges. Saar Scheerlings explores processes to discover new forms and modes of expression for traditional materials. This gives rise to surprising, totemic images for rituals as yet unknown. Anthony Ngoya works with damaged, incomplete and overlooked footage. By collecting, layering and transforming, he creates works that blur the boundaries between personal memory and collective experience.

About the exhibition design by The Rodina

For the exhibition, The Rodina hand-painted “pockets” that carry and care for the artworks, drawing on Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, which proposes gathering and relation as the foundation of culture. The bag –or in our case, the pocket – brings a logic of care and nurturing. Also, in the context of a gallery situated at the heart of De Nederlandsche Bank, the idea of value must be addressed. And where else do we put our purse, wallet, or money? In the pocket, of course!

The Rodina is an Amsterdam-based design studio that operates at the nexus of visual communication, immersive exhibition design and online platforms. The studio operates at the intersection of culture and technology and approaches design as a space for research. Their practice is shaped by strategies involving performance, play and research. The Rodina has previously designed exhibitions for the Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), CARA (New York) and Stroom (The Hague).

About the artists

Natasja Alers (The Hague, 1987) graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and lives and works in Amsterdam. Specialising in ceramics, her practice explores themes of touch, sexuality, vulnerability, and the imperfect nature of human existence. Physicality and tactility are central to her work. Using plaster casts of body parts such as nipples, toes and limbs, she creates sculptural compositions that range from intimate vessels and wall works to larger-than-life sculptures. Through fragmentation and reassembly, Alers transforms the human body into new forms that are both sensual and confrontational. Color and glaze play a crucial role in her artistic process. Treating the ceramic surface as a painterly canvas, she applies multiple layers of glaze in an intuitive manner, creating richly textured skins that enhance the sculptures’ physical presence. Her work has been exhibited internationally at fairs and institutions including Art Rotterdam, Enter Art Fair, Ceramic Brussels, Design Museum Den Bosch, Art Zuid, and PAN Amsterdam.

Silvia Gatti (1983) lives in Amsterdam. Her artistic practice includes video and sound installations, sculpture, poetry and conceptual art. She explores the overlap between the body, memory, language and technology, focusing on the blurred boundaries between human and machine perception. After studying architecture at the University of Genoa, she graduated cum laude from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2021. She then completed a residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (2023–2025). Gatti creates immersive environments in which she combines generative systems, sculptural elements, soundscapes and fragmented narratives to explore body awareness, consciousness and the relationship between the physical and the digital. Recent presentations include Preludio at IFFR 2026 (Art Directions), Chiaro di Luna at Art Rotterdam Projections 2026, Emerging Exits at the Diogene Bunker in Arnhem, and her second solo exhibition, Briefly Humans, at the Andriesse Eyck Gallery.

Krystel Geerts’ (1993) works function as vessels, as testimonies that spring from the body. Rooted in a physical and autobiographical approach, her artistic practice reflects on the way in which environments and systems exert pressure on the body, and how the body learns to navigate, absorb and respond. The work emerges from a dialogue between the interior and the exterior: an ongoing dialogue with the material, in which pressure, movement and physical actions leave their mark on the material. Her art explores social and material systems, and how their structures and forces are inscribed in the body.

Geerts completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Aki ArtEZ in Enschede in 2017 and her Master’s degree at the KASK School of Arts in Ghent in 2022. She is currently an artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Her final presentation will take place in the autumn of 2026. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at venues including Folkwang Essen, (Essen, 2025), Saatchi (London, 2024), C-Mine (Genk, 2024), tegenboschvanvreden, (Amsterdam, 2024) and Museum de Fundatie (Zwolle, 2023). Her work is held in private and public collections around the world.

Maja Klaassens (1989) is a multidisciplinary artist who explores how we perceive, interpret and narratively shape the world around us and our everyday lives. Klaassens obtained her BFA from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 2014 and her MA in Contemporary Art History from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2021. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘A Line of Stones’ at Dürst Britt & Mayhew in The Hague and ‘The view is total sea’ at Joys in Toronto, Canada. Recent duo and group exhibitions include ‘Reality Check’ at Museum MORE in Ruurlo, ‘Cache’ (with Christofer Degrér) at Billytown in The Hague, ‘Niek Kemps & Maja Klaassens’ at lxhxb in Eindhoven, ‘Mountain Friends’ at Fred & Ferry in Antwerp, Belgium, and ‘After Daan van Golden’ at Parts Project in The Hague. Klaassens’ works are held in private and public collections, including Museum Voorlinden in Wassenaar, De Nederlandsche Bank in Amsterdam, the AkzoNobel Art Foundation in Amsterdam and the Grafschafter Volksbank in Nordhorn, Germany.

Thomas Kuijpers (1985) investigates the role of contemporary media narratives in our perception of reality. In 2011, he completed his Master’s degree in photography at St Joost School of Art & Design in Breda. His work has been exhibited internationally at institutions, fairs and galleries, including the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Foam, Amsterdam; Krakow Photo Month, Kraków; Biennale für Aktuelle Fotografie, Mannheim; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt; Red Hook Labs, New York City; and MASP, São Paulo. In 2017, he was nominated as a Foam Talent, and his book Hoarder Order (Fw: Books, 2020) was shortlisted for the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards.

Anthony Daniel Ngoya (1995) is a French artist who works in the Netherlands and Belgium. He works with paint, moving images, textiles and installations, drawing on personal archives, forgotten photographs and historical footage to explore the relationship between memory, identity and history. Central to his work is his approach to damaged, incomplete and overlooked footage. By collecting, layering and transforming, he creates works that blur the boundaries between personal memory and collective experience. His works often oscillate between intimacy and detachment, inviting the viewer to reflect on what is remembered, what has been lost and what needs to be imagined.

Saar Scheerlings (1990) creates works that stem from curiosity, material research and the sheer joy of making. After graduating from the Design Academy Eindhoven, her career path was anything but straightforward. She worked as a cook, assisted set and costume designers in the theatre, and continued to create her own work in the meantime, without any plan, commission or need to exhibit it anywhere. That freedom remains at the heart of her practice. Scheerlings enjoys exploring materials and processes, and develops her own techniques through experimentation. For example, she works with old French linen from local flea markets and foam rubber from discarded mattresses – materials that often find their way into her studio by chance and are given a new lease of life there. She now lives and works in the French countryside, where her days are spent between her studio, her garden and home improvements. Her work has been exhibited at venues including CoBrA Museum, Palais de Tokyo in Paris and various international galleries.

Marenne Welten (1959) lives and works in Middelburg. She graduated from the St Joost School of Art & Design in Breda. After graduating, she lived and worked in Antwerp for a few years. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows in the Netherlands and abroad, including exhibitions at the Kurhaus Kleve museum in Germany in 2006 (solo), the Kunsthalle Lingen in Germany in 2008 (solo), the Kunstverein GFjK in Baden-Baden, Germany, in 2013 (solo), Museum De Pont, Tilburg, 2013/14 (solo), Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York, USA, 2016 (group), Albada Jelgersma Gallery, Amsterdam, 2018 (solo), Stedelijk Museum Breda in 2021/22 (solo), Harkawik Gallery, New York, USA, in 2022 and 2023 (solo), Harkawik Gallery, Los Angeles, USA, in 2024, tegenboschvanvreden Gallery, Amsterdam, in 2025 (solo), Chabot Museum, Rotterdam 2026 (group) and Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (group). In autumn 2026, Marenne Welten will have a solo exhibition at Harkawik Gallery in Tribeca, New York, USA. Her work was included in Hanne Hagenaars’ book Missen als een ronde vorm in 2023.