Polien Boons’ works have a con­ti­nuous ten­d­en­cy to ana­ly­se and decon­struct the spa­ti­al rea­li­ties we inha­bit, both as indi­vi­du­als and col­lec­ti­ve­ly. This way of per­cei­ving the world, spa­ti­al­ly rather than tem­po­ral­ly, star­ted for the artist when she came across Georges Perec’s Species of spa­ces and other pie­ces (1974), any­way: towns, for example, or the coun­try- side, or the cor­ri­dors of the Paris Metro, or a public park. Stated by Perec in his fore­word, this quo­te bears a cru­ci­al fea­tu­re inhe­rent in the work of Polien — name­ly the fas­ci­na­ti­on for the entit­led supe­ri­o­ri­ty and con­trol that human­kind exerts over spa­ce: both con­cep­tu­al­ly (naming of galaxy sys­tems, pla­nets, con­ti­nents, nati­ons) as well as phy­si­cally (cre­a­ti­on of towns, streets, cities). She evo­kes a heigh­te­n­ed awa­re­ness of humans’ neces­si­ty to cate­go­ri­ze in order to ack­now­led­ge exis­ten­ce to other enti­ties, which lies at the foreground of a dicho­to­my bet­ween cul­tu­re and natu­re that Polien see­ks to unra­vel in her work. 

(excerpt of a text by Evelyn Simons)