Le Nghi Teng

Kyra Ten Brink

In a world dominated by technology and the drive for progress, this duo presentation brings together the work of Le Nghi Teng and guest artist Kyra ten Brink. These women explore the connection with the self and the path that leads to it. Both their practices invite us to slow down, become still, and renew our attention to the inner landscape.

Opening Friday March 13th between 6 – 9 pm
Spoken Word performance at 7.30 pm

Le Nghi Teng’s work is rooted in Taoist philosophy and unfolds according to The Way of Water. The Tao serves as a guide: a path that is not mapped out, but reveals itself in moving with what presents itself.

Teng found in photography a visual language that has its origins in classical Chinese art and the principle of wu wei—acting without forcing.

Soft and formless, yet unstoppable in its movement, water adapts without losing its essence. That same quality can be found in Teng’s art: an organic process, from the first glance to the moment when ink and water merge on handmade paper.

on view : 14 March – 26 April
Saturday April 11th Artist Talk

The women in ten Brinks journey are at the center of the project Journeying Home and often exist in states of tension: between vulnerability and strength, between what is shown publicly and what remains private, and between social expectations and their own inner truths.

Here, the body is seen both as a space of negotiation and as a living archive — one shaped by power structures, yet continually capable of resistance, adaptation, and self-definition.

We’re delighted to invite you to our exhibition The Waves, part of the Young Curator Program, curated by Nesli Gül .

Workshop on Hospitality by Ronal Bal: What Makes You Feel Welcome? (WMYFW)
Date: 14 February 2026

Duration: 15:00–17:00
Location: Contour Gallery, Rotterdam
14:00–14:30 Curator-led tour of The Waves
15:00–17:00 Workshop on Hospitality by Ronal Bal

Press article

Read here the review in   artdog Istanbul

Contour Gallery, Rotterdam, presents The Waves,
a group exhibition curated by Nesli Gül, on view from 17 January to 1 March 2026.

Bringing together works by Gamze Öztürk, Anouk Kruithof, Lana Mesić, and Mesut Öztürk, the exhibition explores the fluid relationship between self and environment through questions of identity, memory, and interconnectedness within an ever-evolving urban and cultural landscape.

Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s experimental modernist novel The Waves, the exhibition reinterprets Woolf’s poetic, cyclical structure into a visual and spatial dialogue. Rather than presenting identity as a fixed or autonomous condition, the exhibition The Waves approaches it as relational, performative, and continuously shaped by memory, heritage, ecology, and social context. Across performance, video, installation, and sculpture, the exhibition invites audiences to reflect on how personal and collective identities are formed through lived experience and material relations.

In The Waves, memory is treated not merely as individual recollection but as a cultural and material process, embedded in gestures, rituals, textiles, objects and landscapes. The exhibition foregrounds interconnectedness as both a human and more-than-human condition, asking how bodies, environments, technologies, and histories mutually shape one another.

In a time marked by social fragmentation, ecological anxiety, and the search for belonging,
The Waves offers a timely meditation on transformation, care and coexistence.

Public Programme

In the week of  we are closed  19- 21 februari 2026

 ~ Curator-led tours
30 January, Friday at 18.00
14 February, Saturday at 14:00

~ Artists’ Talk:
6 February, Friday at 18.00

~ Workshop:
14 February, Saturday at 15:00

~ Finissage & closing performance:
1 March  (14.00-17.00)
Live performance: Hands on Hips by Gamze Öztürk at 16.00

*Dates and details subject to change.

This project is realised with the generous support of our partners and funders. CBK Rotterdam, Erasmus Stichting , Pegasus and Gemeente Rotterdam