In Aanwezige Afwezigheid (Presence in Absence) (2026), Luna Muijs explores how a familiar place changes when someone is no longer there. After her father’s death, her parents’ kitchen table takes on a new meaning: a place filled with memories, conversations, and the longing for him to still be sitting there, with his newspaper and a cup of coffee.
"Sometimes I think you could still walk in whistling,
Grab your coffee and sit down at the table with your newspaper,
As if nothing had happened.
When my father died, my life came to a standstill. The world kept turning around me, but I couldn’t move forward, my roots were stuck in the ground. It just kept swirling around in my head. In Carrie Mae Weems’ Kitchen Table Series, she describes how the kitchen table is the place where life’s most significant moments take place and where the full range of emotions is expressed. That’s exactly what my parents’ kitchen table is to me. It’s the place where I’ve spent most of my life. The place where we’ve had the hardest, but also the most beautiful, conversations.
It’s the place where I hope my father will be sitting when I come home, as if nothing had happened, reading his little newspaper with a cup of coffee.”
The video work was created as part of the Hybrid Arts Lab minor at Academie Minerva, in which students explore the relationship between place, material, and personal experiences.
On view until October 30, 2026, at ROAM, Zernikelaan 17, Groningen.