Beltran, Benczur, Claerbout, Holmqvist, Koo, Kessler, Neuenschwander, Sala, Scanner, Snyder, Vaglier

Haunted by Detail is about the way in which small details constitute entire worlds in themselves. These details tie together the lived experience and express its tangible nature. Haunted by Detail is a project, which reflects upon artistic practices where the selection of these details is the starting point for communication. The project includes an exhibition at Stichting De Appel, a Film and Video Programme at the Filmmuseum, and a publication.

The Exhibition presents international artists who, in the midst of daily urban existence, discover neglected details and communicate a life through them. These details function as metaphors but metaphors, which are tangible. These artists are not building prosaic or abstract metaphors but on the contrary are using what is seemingly common, explicit and obvious to bring us closer to lived reality. Such metaphors take a physical object to imply the entire narrative, use a specific camera location or angle to represent the life, select a particular medium to question the objectivity of documentation activities or question the borders of the medium itself or of our perception of it. It can also be the framing of a certain situation, moment or event to allude to the impact of decisive turning points on personal, social or political history, or the highlighting of a small gesture to consider the nature of human relations. By doing so, these artistic practices ground our perception in the mundane and force us to consider what we already know yet disregard. They invite us to question our knowledge and perception, and the way in which we have categorised and processed them.