WHAT'S NEXT?
2025
“WHAT’S NEXT?” combines textiles, everyday objects and symbolic forms to imagine a possible future for human civilization. The installation is housed in a former church in Amsterdam, creating a direct dialogue with the history and architecture of the space, revealing the scene of a new sanctuary - a temple of the future based on cosmological theories and global political changes
The exhibition’s scenography echoes the traditional layout of an altar, with a monumental textile centerpiece at its core. This central object depicts the imagined supercontinent Novopangaea and is constructed from branded T-shirts sourced from local second-hand shops and humanitarian aid supplies. In Khomenko’s vision, Neopangaea is both a real possibility, based on geological theories of continental drift, and a metaphor for a globalized entity, stitched together and led by the corporations in pursuit of profit and logistical convenience. Today, we see companies extending their influence far beyond their products and services, intervening into social, political, and even biological conditions of populations. This idea, sometimes called corporate governmentality, is explored here through playful yet critical artworks. The artist invites visitors to think about these shifts and a future that may not be as distant or imaginary as it seems.
The logos and texts on the T-shirts resemble the names of fictional countries. Compressed fabric creates a textured, three-dimensional surface, distorting the inscriptions, which now appear dreamlike or as AI-generated lettering. The rough edges of the fabric echo the jagged borders of real maps, while the bright colors reflect familiar political map palettes. The use of mass-produced branded T-shirts exposes the embeddedness of corporate values and ideologies in everyday life. Like flags or uniforms, they mark spaces and wrap bodies in corporate messages.
Following the christian symbolism, two vases made from everyday clothing stand like fossils of the present. Instead of altar flowers, they hold dry branches adorned with plastic blossoms shaped hair clips. In an era of relentless environmental change, we are forced to adapt — turning to unexpected, alternative materials
The architectural composition of the exhibition is completed by a colonnade, wrapped in specially crafted covers. Their texture evokes antiquity — a reference to the era that gave us the foundations of democracy, now reduced to little more than the foundation for a marketplace. The main hall structure is complemented by Scriptural cycles - certain warnings and messages that were accidentally found at a second-hand store and look like excerpts from the book of the apocalypse
