In 2025, Dries van Elke won the Hugo Roelandt Prize with his graduation project in the Free Graphics and Drawing programme at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. M HKA invites him to create an INBOX presentation, on view during Antwerp Art Weekend.

"We often think of nature as the evercaring mother, and the rivers as the streams of love and nurture. But mothers are never perfect, that's why we are truly able to love them.

Rivers, to that extent, malevolent and sporadic — nothing kind about their existence. Often they decide what lives and what dies, and whoever is strong enough to get access to them will dominate.

River becomes a form of exclusion, a rupture, separating the banks and the inhabitants. Those blessed to be at the head will nurture on the clean drink, while those catching tails downstream will suffer from the microbes of the mouths of those who sipped the waters first. But exclusivity is unavoidable when it comes to mothers; if they had to share all their love between everybody, their children would ultimately be left unloved."

Artists: Dries van Elke