No Atom in the Universe Can Avoid a Difficult Life\
A solo exhibition by Anna Hoetjes
Gallery van Fanny Freytag is honored to present Anna Hoetjes’ first gallery solo exhibition in Amsterdam, opening on June 12 at 17:00.
Drawing on a quote from the theorem of 19th-century Cosmist and space scientist Tsiolkovsky, “No Atom in the Universe Can Avoid a Difficult Life,” Hoetjes explores both the poetry and destruction embedded within science.
In works where organisms crawl out of minemaps, rare earth metals slip between fingers, and female bodies repeatedly attempt to force themselves into visibility, Hoetjes confronts us with the cosmic cycles of violence and creation that our bodies are part of. Layered textile techniques, ceramics that push the limits of the material, and speculative video works come together.
At the center of the exhibition is the element neodymium, a rare earth metal that Hoetjes uses in her color-changing glazes. It reacts extremely strongly to magnetic fields and light frequencies. Neodymium is formed only in the most powerful exploding stars and is widely observed in astronomy. In recent decades, it has become one of the most important and intensively mined resources on Earth for the tech industry. In this exhibition, Hoetjes connects the reactive materiality of this element to the social reality it is part of. She plays with visibility and invisibility, repeatedly asking what it means to be in relation to the coercive forms that science and economics have taken within a patriarchal, capitalist, and colonial system. Her works explore alternative kinds of relationships, in which female scientists and bodies always take center stage.
Astronomer Theresa Lueftinger in new video work 'No atom in the universe can avoid a difficult life', 2026
Special event:
Artist-Astronomer talk between Dr. Theresa Rank-Lueftinger and Anna Hoetjes
On June 28 we are honored to host a talk between astronomer Dr. Theresa Rank-Lueftinger and Anna Hoetjes.
Dr. Theresa Rank-Lueftinger is an Ariel Project Scientist at the European Space Agency (ESA). She combines in research what fascinates her the most: Space missions and Space flight with research on Exoplanets and their host stars being the ESA Ariel Project Scientist.
If you want to join this talk please let us know!
Their best dresses - Henrietta Swann Leavitt, 2026, photosensitive glaze on porcelain, steel, fluorescent tube.
Anna Hoetjes lives and works in Amsterdam. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues such as W139 Amsterdam, Museum Rijswijk, Fosun Foundation Shanghai, EPFL Pavilions Lausanne, Lunds Konsthall, Bonniers Konsthall Stockholm, ArtScience Museum Singapore, and the Glasgow Film Festival. She has been an artist-in-residence at the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Ceramic Work Center (EKWC). She has received multiple grants from the Mondriaan Fund and studied fine art at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, Cooper Union in New York, and UdK in Berlin. She earned her MFA at the Dutch Art Institute. She currently teaches Virtual Worlds at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.
Through speculative videos and tactile objects—ceramics, textiles, and metal—her installations dismantle the patriarchal and colonial foundations of science. Playing with color and fragmentation, she combines data visualizations with figurative bodies. She envisions a feminist future in which knowledge is produced through embodied interactions between matter and beings. Based on historical research, conversations with scientists, and collaborative projects around feminist sci-fi, she deconstructs the visual language of Western scientific cartography and challenges the historical myth of the individual genius.