For the second time in a row, Vleeshal was selected to participate in POPPOSITIONS in Brussels. Established in 2012 as a counterbalance to mainstream art fairs, POPPOSITIONS has grown into an internationally well known alternative art manifestation, celebrating its 8th edition. Titled Capital of Woke, this edition questions the increasing application of the term woke in a capitalist and corporate context and invites artists and institutions to think about what responses and forms of resistance can be formulated when ideologies and social justice are used as a trendy sales model.

Vleeshal brought the work of the young American artist Alexandra Phillips to POPPOSITIONS. In her work, ranging from sculpture, installation, video, writing, drawing, performance and printed matter, she comments upon our fleeting and insatiable existence with a light touch and a witty sense of humour. In the sculptural works she presented at POPPOSITIONS, Phillips highlights unexpected qualities of common materials and by extension locates assumptions made about the possibilities and use value of these materials, which are often taken for granted and are considered not to be of much worth. Tupperware, plastic and foam wrappings, plaster; she does not transform them, but works with the intrinsic characteristics of these materials and by doing so shows us their unforeseen potential and appeal.