The Perpetual Tapestry by Simone Hooymans is a multichannel animation featuring a living, transforming textile landscape. We are invited to follow bees as they pull, gather and weave the threads, while other parts of the image unravel. This landscape, a world in flux, gradually transforms from a colorful garden into a dark, industrial landscape. An important point of reference in the work is medieval tapestry, particularly The Apocalypse Tapestry in Angers based on the Book of Revelation. In Hooymans' work, the biblical apocalypse becomes a way of giving form to a contemporary experience of uncertainty and impending catastrophe.
Our time is surrounded by apocalyptic imagery – war, disease, climate crisis and ecological collapse reach us not as isolated events, but as a continuous stream of images, warnings and information. Catastrophe no longer appears as a single event yet to come, but as something we already find ourselves within. Hooymans' work carries a fragile form of hope – not necessarily that catastrophe can be avoided – but in the possibility of weaving anew. Whether we are witnessing a beginning, a repetition or a repair remains unresolved.
Simone Hooymans (b. 1974, Netherlands) is an animation artist whose work transforms watercolour drawings into immersive, living environments. Through animation, she develops a critical voice on climate change, contemporary global politics and humanity's relationship with nature. Her work has been exhibited internationally at festivals and exhibitions including Ars Electronica, the Netherlands Film Festival and the Beijing Short Film Festival, as well as in exhibitions and film festivals across Europe, Asia and the United States. Her animations have also been shown at Norway's Statens Høstutstilling and Vestlandsutstillingen.
