De tunnel / Welkom in ons lichaam

‘Welkom in ons lichaam’ is a collaborative exhibition by Lucas Braak, Levi Jacobs, and Mees Elias van Zanten. The three young trans artists playfully employ their bodies as a vehicle for resistance.

At a time when politics is hardening against trans people and bodily autonomy is increasingly curtailed, Lucas, Mees, and Levi search for space to exist.

Through their work, they explore how the queer body can function both as a site of joy, discovery, and playfulness, and as an instrument for memory, disruption, and resistance. Guided by Lucas’s Sterrenmensjes—a growing body of work conceived as an ode to the body—the artists dare to expose themselves quite literally. The Sterrenmensjes whisper to everyone: “We are all little works of art. You belong. You can shine. You can take up space.” In this exhibition, the artists join forces to offer the audience an intimate, sensory glimpse into their bodies: taste me, feel me, see me, hear me.

Precisely by giving themselves away so radically, they reclaim their own bodies. “Welkom in ons lichaam. Welcome to our universe—intimate, at times disruptive, yet always filled with closeness.”

Artists

Mees Elias van Zanten (he/him)
is a self-taught visual artist and performer with an academic background in Dutch Literature. His work stems from a fascination with discomfort, social taboos, gender, sexuality, and physicality. He places his trans body at the centre as a political ‘battleground’: a site where normativity is dismantled and where vulnerability, discomfort, eroticism, and pleasure are deployed as methods of confrontation. Refusing disciplinary boundaries, Mees combines unconventional materials such as silicone, epoxy, chocolate, and papier-mâché with traditional media including film, photography, theatre, poetry, and painting.

Lucas Braak (they/them)
is a queer multidisciplinary artist who recently graduated from HKU. Lucas works from a sense of curiosity and admiration for bodies, love, gender, and sexuality. Through illustration and design, Lucas combines digital and analogue techniques such as painting, RISO print, ceramics, and mixed media. Inspired by their queer experience, Lucas's work resides somewhere between gentleness and power: sometimes playful, at other times direct or subtly disruptive. Their style balances vulnerability with confidence, aiming to create space for recognition, conversation, and connection.

Levi Jacobs (he/him)
is a multidisciplinary artist based in Amsterdam. His work emerges from a personal investigation into sexuality and gender. As a young trans man, he is constantly searching for his own position within Amsterdam's contemporary gay community. He uses art to navigate this landscape and give form to his discoveries. Levi does not limit himself to a single discipline, working with a wide range of materials such as ceramics, drawings, paintings, synthetics, (photo/video) projections, wood, and chocolate.