Turin Horse: Hydrotherapy, 2023.
Silkscreen print, mounted in birch frame. Edition of 5.
Presented at CristelBallroomGallery, Amsterdam, 17-18 May, as part of ‘Chop Chop’.

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There are creatures we never see, yet they gallop through us – with their hooves beating against the inside of our chest. Sometimes they arrive without warning, and sometimes they’ve been there all along –

Turin Horse traces the internal movements we call anxiety – not as something to negate or overcome, but something to be understood, accompanied, and gently cared for. It uses multiple personal and literary references where horses are the cause of our nightmares or are the precursors of ill fate, in order to give physical presence to the terrors that are otherwise hidden, abstract and intangible. They are the silent companions to our inner turmoil, the unseen forces that gallop just beneath the surface. Don’t we all carry such creatures within us? How do we care for the mares that haunt us at night, or the four that herald our private apocalypses?

In therapeutic contexts, real horses – sensitive, emotionally attuned animals – are often used to mirror our internal states. They respond not to control, but to trust. And yet, for such therapy to work, the horse must be cared for too. This reciprocity becomes a central concern of the project: what if healing does not mean mastering fear, but learning to ride alongside it? The silkscreen print shows an injured horse undergoing hydrotherapy at an equine recovery centre in Belgium in 2020. In this clinical yet intimate setting, horses are rehabilitated with patience and attentiveness. Water, here, becomes both a physical and symbolic medium: a conduit for embodiment, connection, and healing.

*The title Turin Horse refers to Nietzsche’s 1889 breakdown upon witnessing a horse’s suffering, using the horse as a metaphor for the triggers and challenges we face in society. Since 2020, the ongoing project has explored the hidden narratives of wellbeing and anxiety, reflecting on the subtle forces that unsettle us and how we might learn to care for what frightens and shapes us into being.