colophon
long list of
friends
and
enemies
Ksenia Perek, ILEGALL dog legal guardian
Pedro Matias, nervous Poodle
AVOIDSTREET, "I see design as a HOT MEDIUM"
Dog Od aka nazar
Sarah Fernandez, Chienne de Garde du futur
Hidde Aans Verkade, only in it for the money
Arthur Guillieminot, poet
Fadi Houmani, Graced by God ready to charge
Robert Łosyk, muse, finest of them all
The creation of ILEGALL was made possible with the support of Amsterdams Fonds voor De Kunst. (Image: a piñata of their logo made by Arthur Guilleminot)
Song: It Never Rains in Southern California, by Albert Hammond ‧ 1972
designed and coded by Maisa Imamović
© Ksenia Perek 2025
Press
EMPATHETHIC TOPOGRAPHIES
Empathetic Topographies emerged from a desire to stay with a practice that refuses to settle. It brings together different voices, forms of writing, images, memories and ways of thinking around the work of Pedro Matias — a practice developed through movement: between sculpture and moving image, between the intimate and the planetary, between anxiety and play, between what can be touched and what remains just beyond reach.
Rather than offering a linear account of the work, the publication takes the form of a chart. It is fragmented, porous and deliberately unfinished. Heidi Brunnschweiler and Carolien Hermans enter Matias’ practice from different positions, while André Lourenço edits Matias’ contribution and extends this constellation through his own reading of the work. Matias’ writing moves through places, bodies, waters, materials and encounters. Together, these voices do not attempt to stabilise the work, but remain attentive to its shifting conditions.
Alongside these voices, the publication is also a work by artist Juliette Lizotte, conceived not as a container for the texts and images, but as an autonomous proposition within the constellation. Her design becomes another way of moving through the practice: (re-)arranging, interrupting, (re-)connecting and opening spaces between its fragments.
At the centre of this movement is a question of how the world might be encountered otherwise. How might touch become a form of knowledge? How might displacement become generative rather than merely something to overcome? What happens when the boundaries between body and environment, human and more-than-human, subject and material begin to soften? Water runs through these questions—not simply as metaphor, but as a way of thinking with fluidity, transformation and interdependence. Coral reefs, anxious waters, submerged worlds and leaking bodies become companions in an attempt to unlearn the fantasy of separation.
The publication is therefore less an explanation of Matias’ practice than an invitation into its currents. It asks for slowness. For imagination. For noticing differently. And perhaps, above all, for a willingness to get lost.
The launch of Pedro Matias’ publication Empathetic Topographies will unfold as a simple and intimate gathering around the voices, images and questions held within the book.
Bios
Pedro Matias
Ksenia Perek_ ILEGALL.
Juliette Lizotte
