CAPSULES / LUXEMBOURG ART WEEK, LX
Solo Exhibition by Olivia Rode HvassCurated by Çağla Erdemir
15th of October - 23rd of November 2025
Photos by Sophie Margue
With Capsules, Luxembourg Art Week takes over vacant spaces, store windows, and façades in the city center. Each activated space will be visible from the street around the clock.
Olivia Rode Hvass, curated by Çağla Erdemir
HUNT(ED)
HUNT(ED) presents a series of digitally woven landscapes that act as portals between past and present. In Olivia Rode Hvass’s Jacquard tapestries, myth and memory intertwine with reflections on power, conquest, and the human relationship to nature. More than mere tools, the looms become narrative devices – threading together stories of care, resistance, and interconnectedness in a fragmented world. At the heart of the work lies a pressing question: In times of crisis, when caring communities are both vital and vulnerable, how can we resist apathy and isolation within an individualised, production-driven society?
Central to the installation is the figure of the horse – once a unicorn. Inspired by the 16th-century tapestry cycle La Chasse à la licorne, in which a mythical creature is hunted, subdued, and caged, Hvass revisits the image of the unicorn not as a romantic fantasy, but as a symbol of categorisation and control. Historically, the unicorn has stood for the magical, the Other, the untameable – and has been weaponised to represent desire subdued, difference regulated. While the original cycle celebrates the unicorn’s capture, Hvass interrogates the narratives of domination embedded in such imagery. In her reinterpretation, the lush hunting grounds lie desolate, covered in brittle hay; the once-mythic unicorn has shed its horn and returned as a grounded, hornless horse.
In their practice Olivia Rode Hvass (she her/they them - b. 1995, Copenhagen, Danemark) creates fantastical universes that explore storytelling and world building. Born in Aalborg, Denmark and having lived in many places, their work shifts from deep countryside to inner city aesthetics. Hvass is interested in cultural norms as a foundation of a society. They find inspiration in the meeting points between myths and reality sometimes highlighting forgotten treasures or rewriting epic tales and questioning archetypes. Coming from a background of family neglect and mental illness, they are drawn to alternate realities, care, magic, and mystery as well as critical towards established narratives and societal norms.
Interview of Olivia Rode Hvass
Location
Centre Neuberg,
7, pl. du Théâtre, L-2613 Luxembourg
Art Walk Challenge
With the kind support of ENGEL&VÖLKERS