Morena Bamberger*

This summer, the attic of the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam will be transformed into a dark universe. Here, the Limburg artist Morena Bamberger (Roermond, 1994) presents a new installation in which she explores the transition between life and death. The mystical aspects of life and ancient cultures serve as her inspiration. ‘Through Matter of Time’ is Bamberger’s first solo exhibition outside Limburg.

Figures emerge from the darkness, illuminated by spotlights, attracting the visitor’s gaze with their radiant appearance. The creatures have no limbs and seem encapsulated in a mass of matter that glistens and sparkles. They look as though they come from the very depths of the earth, reminiscent of gemstones and the black gold once mined in South Limburg. As a visitor, you cannot help but wonder: are these figures alive, dead, or perhaps dreaming?

Morena Bamberger, Through Matter of Time, Photo Tobias Heemels

Visions
Bamberger takes us on an inner journey in which dream images and visions evoke an alternative reality and question the difference between life and matter. What is death and what is life? Who is to say that our existence is real and not merely a dream? For this installation she draws not only on her own mystical encounters, but also on ancient cultures such as those of Egypt, Easter Island, the Celts, and Russian folk culture, as well as her own Sinti roots. With carefully chosen scents and sounds, she further enhances the visitor’s spiritual experience.

Bamberger is deeply sensitive to the mystical aspects of life, which she translates into captivating works – engaging visitors visually, and immersing them in a sensory, spiritual world, reflecting the artist’s personal experiences. Morena Bamberger, who is part of the Sinti community, is the first artist in the Netherlands with this background. Convincing her family that she wanted to become a visual artist was not easy. While music holds a significant role in Sinti culture, visual arts are unchartered territory. From a young age, Bamberger was drawn to making things and to nature, where she found great inspiration.

Portrait of Morena Bamberger in her installation Canis Lunatic, photo Dani Silvia

Training and recognition
In 2018, Bamberger graduated from the Maastricht Institute of Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. In 2019, she was an artist in residence at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. She won both the Gilbert de Bontridder Prize and the Henriëtte Hustinx Prize in 2018, and in 2019 the Limburg Visual Arts Scholarship. In 2022, she won the Parkstad Limburg Prize and exhibited her work at Schunck in Heerlen, the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, and the Odapark in Venray. In 2024, the Bonnefantenmuseum invited her to collaborate with Malgorzata Mirga-Tas, a Roma artist who made waves in 2023 with her large installation for the Venice Biennale. For the entrance of this exhibition, Bamberger created a new work about her Sinti family. This installation, Sonnekaskro Djiephen, depicts the caravan as a chapel, where religion and travel converge. This work, along with other installations, has been acquired by the Bonnefantenmuseum.

You can visit her website here.

Emerging talent
Every year, the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam offers two young artists the opportunity to create new work for one of its attic spaces. Since the 1950s, the museum has focused on “artists who are alive today” and has actively supported the development of emerging talent in the visual arts – from the Cobra artists, who once revolutionised Dutch modern art and from whom the museum’s famous Cobra collection originated, to the present day.

Art historian Nicolette Gast is the guest curator of the exhibition.

 ‘Through Matter of Time’ has been made possible thanks to support from the Basic Funding Scheme for Regional Museums (Basisinfrastructuur voor regionale musea) of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.

Header: Morena Bamberger, Through Matter of Time, Photo Tobias Heemels.