The series Circuit came about in reference to the book “Circle Surface Sun – From Somewhere in the Mediterranean”, published by Irena Eden and Stijn Lernout together with the Kunstverein Konstanz in 2020. In the book, the artist duo asked 23 authors from all countries adjoining the Mediterranean to contribute texts on the perception of light where they live. The book “Circle Surface Sun” was born from these essays with their highly personal, yet at the same time political content, together with a series of photographs of light reflections on the surface of the sea. To accompany the book, a frottage process was used to transfer the photographs onto handmade paper for further processing. Fine lines and geometric shapes are reminiscent of a surveying or coordinate system; of stopping points or orientation aides in a boundless space.

— Magdalena Koschat

Space is portrayed as a showplace of political conditions in the project "Bring Home the Bacon" (2010), source of the drawingsElektro I-IV. The concept is inspired by the guest worker movement at the end of the 1960s and focuses on the topic of earning a living by thematising the deeply significant route between the south-east European countries and the west known as the Autoput. As an analogy to work as a means of earning a living, Irena Eden and Stijn Lernout travelled the Autoput in the opposite direction, from Vienna towards Istanbul. Here they had a bakery bake bread according to various traditional recipes they collected along the way.

— Magdalena Koschat

The artistic activities of Irena Eden and Stijn Lernout are based on explorations of the varying conditions and parameters of space. This exploration of the linear relationships in spatial structures is not only articulated in their drawings and objects, it also serves as an inspiration for their large-scale projects, in which they extend the term "space" to encompass cities and geographical regions. At the same time, space as a mathematical display form is elevated to a place in which experiences and sensations meet.

— Magdalena Koschat

Elektro I-IVreflect the distances covered, the various stopping points and encounters, the experiences and sensations in geometrical form. Axes, levels and perspectives are combined mathematically with the coincidental expansion of the colour areas, which take on the character of watercolours through the use of a wash technique.

Engaging with the different realities and parameters of space forms the basis of the artistic activity of Irena Eden and Stijn Lernout. The exploration of linear relations within spatial structures is dominant in their drawings and objects as well as being the inspiration behind their large-scale projects, in which they extend the concept of space to include cities and geographic areas. Space as a mathematical form of perception becomes a place of encounter for experiences and emotions.

— Magdalena Koschat

Irena Eden and Stijn Lernout work with geometrical bodies which are taken apart and then reorganised and distorted to create new perspectives. The duo's works are bound to a system of coordinates that also directs the sculptures on their way to occupying three-dimensional space. 

— Magdalena Koschat