The exhibition Various Positions, whose title is borrowed from Leonard Cohen’s homonymous album, brings together the artistic practices of the second-year candidate laureates at HISK, Belgium. The red thread to their work is that they each create their own universe in an idiosyncratic manner. Hence, instead of imposing a far-fetched theme that tries to unite eleven totally different practices, each candidate is given the opportunity to express their artistic position to the full. While some adhere to a classic studio practice, others engage with the outside world. This to-and-fro movement from studio to the outside world can be correlated to two different ways of defining the self: one is the belief that the true self is hidden deep within each person. This is the so-called vertical, romantic worldview, whose philosophy of authenticity reveals a strong Platonic and Christian dimension. Conversely, according to the horizontal worldview, the self is not fixed, but in flux, constantly developing through interactions and encounters with others. This postmodernist viewpoint is suspicious of the idea of a fixed self.