The Eye
Chongqing
China, 2026

The Eye shows the interior of a shopping mall with several levels, organized around a monumental sphere that architecturally dominates the space. Within a cut out section of this sphere, a single eye appears, enlarged and impossible to ignore. Through its scale and placement, the eye seems not only to inhabit the space, but to control it.

For this work, Hans Wilschut once again intervened in an existing image flow. He removed all advertising from the feed, leaving the eye isolated as a disturbing, almost hallucinatory presence. What would normally function as part of a commercial environment of seduction and distraction is transformed into something that seems to interrupt the logic of that very environment.

Against this intrusive image, everyday life continues at a different pace. Shoppers take the escalators, move from floor to floor, and browse quietly through the stores. A tension emerges between the ordinary time of consumption and the strange presence of an image that does not submit to the commercial order, but quietly puts it under pressure.