A Pop-Up Exhibition by Nathan Samuel & Cafe Conrad
(Zocherstraat 10 Amsterdam, Netherlands 1054LX)
About:
At the core of this Pop Up exhibition lies the idea of fragmentation and reconstruction: how memory, identity, and perception are always partial, layered, and shifting.
Nothing we experience remains whole; we build our own versions of truth, shaped by culture, background, and the limits of what we can see or remember. I mean, do you and your friends / partner / Family all agree on the news that you all watch? if not then why not?
Across these works, images are broken apart and reassembled. (through pixels, blood cells, faces, and urban traces) mirroring how identity and meaning are continuously reconstructed.
In an age shaped by algorithms, filters, and misinformation, these works invite reflection on what we choose to see, what we overlook, and how we piece together our own understanding of the world.
This exhibition at Café Conrad grew from a shared vision with owner Moritz to bring local artists into conversation with the neighbourhood. Introduced through a mutual acquaintance who had seen a previous pop-up, this collaboration continues that spirit of connection and creative exchange.
Cells
In Cells, I collaborated with a medical research centre to print using my own blood cells (not actual blood), replacing the dots of a screenprint with an painted cell . The resulting images hover between the microscopic and the human, connecting ancestry and biology. The half-black, half-white compositions embody the paradoxes of mixed identity (50% and 100% at once) revealing how history lives not only in memory but within the body itself.
Remix Project (Sierra Leone)
Part of a larger ongoing series, these portraits from Sierra Leone are fractured and reassembled to question how identity is constructed and distorted. The works evoke both continuity and rupture (faces that are recognisably human yet unsettling.) They reflect on belonging, diaspora, and the way personal and collective histories are constantly broken apart and remade.
A World of Colour
A vibrant departure from earlier monochrome works, A World of Colour transforms pixelated portraits of people encountered across Africa and India into abstract, vivid compositions. Enlarged and blurred, the faces can only be completed by the viewer’s imagination. These works explore renewal and connection : Moments of encounter that open new perspectives while continuing an exploration of identity through perception.
The One-Minute World News: Deconstructed and Reconstructed
This series transforms BBC one-minute news bulletins into single, abstract images by compressing moving frames into vertical columns of pixels. The stark black-and-white result mirrors the binary nature of news narratives: right/wrong, true/false. By pausing the flow of information, these works invite reflection on how media shapes perception and how easily truth becomes fragmented.
Borders
Borders explores the physical and psychological edges that shape our experience of urban life. Walking the peripheries of 1 km² city grids, I document forgotten or transitional spaces where order meets chaos. Through photography, notes, and studio reconstruction, the project reimagines what it means to know a city—not by its center, but by its boundaries. It is an invitation to see beyond the familiar and rediscover the edges where life unfolds.
The Fragmentation of Identity: Reconstructing the Familiar in Portrait
This new, interactive work turns the human face, your face, into a site of distortion and reconstruction. in real time your face is dissected and reassembled into new, uncanny identities: Recognisable yet wrong. In an age of filters, AI, and digital self-editing, these fractured portraits expose the seams we usually hide. Each face becomes a reminder of our own curated (online) selves, reflecting the tension between authenticity and artifice, reality and reconstruction.
