Vaast Colson

In his multidisciplinary practice, Vaast Colson explores the boundaries between art, artistry and everyday life. With an inquisitive eye, he fishes out how images are created and myths and roles are constructed. His work, which is often created from a specific space and context, invites the audience to join in the moment.

During the winter of 2024–25, Vaast Colson stayed in the iconic artist residences that supported MASEREEL’s residency programme for over fifty years and are now giving way to a new artist pavilion. This stay inspired him to repurpose nine abandoned shower curtains for the hybrid work Framing and Reframing (Gradually Experiencing the Consequence(s) of Being in the World), realised in an edition of nine. Each piece consists of a stretched shower curtain with a hand-applied screen print and added elements such as a USB stick and a Polaroid.

Several aspects of Framing and Reframing evoke vulnerability. A two-part screen print pairs a comic-like storyboard with a preliminary sketch: a hat-wearing figure, built from repeated basic shapes, appears to look around in wonder—present in the world, yet without a clear destination. The original label on the back of the curtain, featuring a shell associated by Colson with Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, is echoed in the Polaroid, where the artist carefully adopts Venus’s pose.

Colson describes the work as a hybrid: a finished object with an internal memory and an ongoing potential—a generator capable of producing new material. The USB stick, for instance, contains the audio work I’m Just a Hummin’ and a Walin’ (The Act of Finding Oneself Behind the Screen by Means of Ego Location), in which the artist can be heard humming and crooning while taking a shower.

For most of us, the shower is far removed from professional activity—a place of literal and figurative nakedness, shielded only by a thin curtain. Colson, however, sees this intimate space as fertile ground for creation: when thoughts drift, unexpected insights emerge, and the fragments that surface carry a surprising gravity.

Framing and reframing (Gradually experiencing the consequence(s) of being in the world) (2025)
Two-dimensional constellation, various materials (screen print on shower curtain, Polaroid, USB stick)
180 x 95 cm
Edition of 9

I’m just a hummin’ and a walin’ (The act of finding oneself behind the screen by means of echo location) (2025)
Audio installation
7’07” (loop)