Zeynep Kayan’s video work This is How You Return (2024) was featured in that slab of outlaw time, the third exhibition of Eye becomes water, a four-part programme at Het Paviljoen, that explores the act of waiting as a conceptual framework. that slab of outlaw time is part of ‘Eye becomes water’, an exhibition and public programme curated by Daphné Charitos, Natalija Gucheva, Abel Hartooni, Yasemin Köker, Temitayo Olalekan, and Jean Watt. Drawing from the history of Het Paviljoen, Eye becomes water explores waiting not as a passive or neutral act, but as one that engages multiple temporalities, bodily experiences, and power dynamics. The exhibition ran between April 24 and May 11, 2025.

The two-channel video centres on a motionless torso confined to the frame, accompanied by a looping melody periodically pierced by high-pitched tones—echoing the tension of intrusive thoughts. As water spills and a stain spreads across the artist’s shirt, subtle changes surface within repetition, evoking acts of remembering and forgetting. Titled after Anne Carson’s poem "Ode to Sleep", the exhibition reflects on waiting as a liminal state, drawing parallels to sleep. Kayan’s piece, with its quiet insistence and slow unraveling, highlights what lies at the periphery of perception—the hidden strangeness of the everyday.

Photo by Charlotte Daniëlse, Courtesy of Het Paviljoen

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