EXCESS BAGGAGE is an exhibition of the work by Sander Coers that explores how memory shapes our idea of home and influences the relationships formed within a family.
EXCESS BAGGAGE consists of ordinary scenes and familiar objects, the small things that gather meaning over time.
What remains when family stories fade, shift, or were never fully told?
Coers draws from his personal archive, where photographs, gestures, and inherited belongings hold traces of intimacy that feel vivid yet incomplete.
A key element of the project is Coers’ reinterpretation of family photographs through analogue, digital, and AI-assisted processes. He feeds archival images into AI and translates the results into raw materials — UV-printed plywood, hand-glazed ceramic tiles, or inherited domestic objects. This approach mirrors the mechanics of memory: fragmentary, selective, and constantly reworked. AI expands certain details while warping others, similar to how memories accumulate new meanings or lose precision with each retelling.
The raw surfaces that Coers uses for his prints add both physical texture and emotional weight. The grain of the wood recalls the warmth of skin. The glaze of the ceramic suggests a photograph handled over years. Images become tactile objects that can be touched, held, and remembered. They carry the same softness, distortion, and fragile beauty as memory itself.
The plywood makes the image a physical object rather than a flat picture. The grain interrupts the image slightly. The surface catches light in a particular way. It brings a sense of time into the work. It prevents the photograph from looking too clean or too digital. It gives the image a texture that relates to memory.
EXCESS BAGGAGE is neither a restoration nor an idealization of the past. On a personal level, Coers approaches his generational trauma as something that cannot be fully understood. This exhibition circles around the concept of memory as both personal and shared. Excess Baggage offers a quiet reflection on love, home, and the fragile ties that keep us connected.