Aurora Pavilion

In the historic building of the old gasworks in Leiden, Koen Hauser presents his latest works. The exhibition Aurora Pavilion surveys various methods of transforming photographic images, with medical photography serving as its point of departure. Images of birth, deformity, and physical vulnerability, found in old books, reappear as digital photo collages, reliefs, objects, and installations.

The exhibition brings together new works alongside existing pieces, including the Asylum Portraits (2019) and the installation Diorama Mechanica (2005). Together, they depict a world in which impressions of early childhood development become intertwined with those of celestial bodies, architectural ornamentation, and historical photography. Aurora Pavilion serves as a blueprint of the psychological processes that shape our experience of the world. For the architect, the pavilion embodies their creation story, a mythology of perception.