STARLIGHT SHINE - WONDER Festival
For WONDER Creativity Festival, Designregio Kortrijk partnered with Fedustria. The result is the textile installation STARLIGHT SHINE developed by Victor Verhelst in collaboration with the 6 Belgian textile production companies B&T Textilia, Green Street Fabrics, Belo Velvets, Van Neder, Tessutica, Aarova. The installation was on display during the festival at the Patria on the Grote Markt in Kortrijk.
Starlight Shine
The textile pavilion STARLIGHT SHINE integrates all the characteristics inherent in Verhelst's work. From its digital canvas, the installation invited spectators to experience a physical, immersive journey that unfolds the ‘process of a car wash’ through the lens of the ‘TRIPPY VEGAS’ universe.
As you moved through the installation, you were surrounded by intricately crafted tapestries, each produced in collaboration with leading Belgian textile manufacturing companies, using leftover yarn from their production. The walls, floors and various elements were not simply surfaces, but narrative layers, each representing a different stage of the transformation process - from the initial “ cleansing” to the final “ polish.”
With “STARLIGHT SHINE,” the juxtaposition of digital elements and tactual craftsmanship challenged you to see both technology and tradition in a new light.
Victor Verhelst
Victor Verhelst (°1997, BE) is a visual artist.
Rooted in graphic arts and the craft of textile art, Victor Verhelst’s oeuvre weaves a diverse array of mediums into his autonomous creations. His artistic journey flows seamlessly from the digital realm to the tactual of in the physical world, manifesting in unique Riso prints, voluminous tapestries, and interactive game technology. At the heart of his work lies the ongoing series ‘TRIPPY VEGAS,’ a vibrant, evolving digital cityscape where virtual architecture, human interactions, and imaginative structures merge into a new, surreal fiction.
Verhelst’s aesthetic is a dance of distortion and juxtaposition, where 2D and 3D images collide and blend, creating striking figurative compositions. Printed matter - whether digital, 3D, Riso, or textile - explore the delicate relationship between the materiality and the pre-existing digital image, breathing life into the digital depiction and infusing it with a tangible, multi-dimensional presence.
A project of
Victor Verhelst, Designregio Kortrijk, Fedustria, B&T Textilia, Green Street Fabrics, Belo Velvets, Van Neder, Tessutica, Aarova, Alain Verhelst, PLUS-ONE Gallery, A.P./Studio
