[NL/EN below] “Spoorzoekers” ging op zoek naar de materiële restanten van wat de kolonisatie van Congo heeft betekend voor de gemeente Sint-Pieters-Woluwe. De belangrijkste factor daarin was de aanleg van de Tervurenlaan en de tram en treinsporen die voor de wereldtentoonstelling van 1897 werden aangelegd. Op die wereldexpo presenteerde Leopold II zijn kolonisatieproject aan de Belgische bevolking. Het gigantische bouwproject ontsloot het landelijke Sint-Pieters-Woluwe en Stokkel. Die verstedelijking zorgde in de daaropvolgende decennia voor een toeristische dynamiek en veranderde de landelijke gemeente in een prestigieus woongebied.
Om alle rijkdom uit Congo te verschepen naar België werd tussen Matadi en Leopoldville (Kinshasa) ook een spoorweg aangelegd, wat een grote dodentol zou eisen: 1931 doden waarvan 131 kolonialen. Om die te herdenken werd het idee gelanceerd om hun namen in te schrijven op een monument dat op de Tervurenlaan een plek moet vinden.
Voor het onderzoek dook Sam Vanoverschelde in die geschiedenis en in het kunstpatrimonium, om het verhaal van die koloniale connectie bloot te leggen en in zijn context te bestuderen. Deze ‘etat des lieux’ vormt de basis voor een verder onderzoek naar het immateriële erfgoed: het verzamelen van de verhalen van bewoners en andere betrokkenen. Het hele verhaal vind je uitgebreid terug in deze catalogus
“Spoorzoekers” (“Trackers”) went in search of the material remnants of what the colonisation of Congo meant for the municipality of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre. The main factor in this was the construction of the Avenue de Tervuren and the tram and train tracks built for the 1897 World’s Fair. At that world fair, Leopold II presented his colonisation project to the Belgian population. The gigantic construction project opened up rural Sint-Pieters-Woluwe and Stokkel. That urbanisation created a tourist boom in the following decades and turned the rural municipality into a prestigious residential area.
To ship all the wealth from Congo to Belgium, a railway was also built between Matadi and Leopoldville (Kinshasa), which would claim a large death toll: 1931 dead of whom 131 were colonials. To commemorate them, the idea was launched to inscribe their names on a monument to find a place on Avenue de Tervuren.
For the research, Sam Vanoverschelde delved into that history and into the art patrimony, to uncover the story of that colonial connection and study it in context. This ‘etat des lieux’ forms the basis for further research into the intangible heritage: collecting the stories of residents and other stakeholders.
As the conservation of the heritage of my great-grandfather Joe English and our family archive in general is one of the many aspects in my work, I’m part of an informal network of collectors, connaisseurs and experts in the field of Belgian painters from the 1830-ies to the 1950-ies, called Kunstvrienden (‘artfriends’). Back in april ’23, we started concocting a plan to create a catalog of all the artists and schools that we represent. I took up the function of layouter and together with Jacques Laperre (Lucien Frank collector and editor at ‘Melijn‘) and Luc De Wilder (Guillaume Van Strydonck collector and head of the ‘Heemkundekring Machala‘) we acted as the editorial trio. The catalog, presenting 31 articles on painters and schools, was printed on 300 copies and presented at a gathering in Mechelen on october 28th. There’s still a few copies left: if you’re interested feel free to send me an email, the catalog costs 20€+shipping. Just to give you an idea, here’s some spreads from the book.
deliberately set to random order, just buy the book, okay?!
The Field is a short film that retraces the steps of Frederick Walker on the night of october 8th to 9th 1918 when he suffered a gas attack in a field near Houplines. It left him visually impaired for the rest of his life. The film is currently ready for festival submissions so I cannot publish anything online yet, but feel free to ask for a private viewing or go check it out on filmfreeway shortly.
Some background information
Within the ‘Fictive Archive Investigations‘ group Philippe Black, Julian Walker and myself embarked on a common project, Borderlines and Frontlines, handing over the archival pieces and information to the others so each could work on a personal approach with other people’s materials.
My goal was to embark on a pilgrimage to the places where they had lived their ordeal, document that as precisely as possible and create new work from my personal perspective. I received a fragment of Frederick Walker’s war diary, some regiment information and two possible locations for the gas attack in Houplines as well as several addresses in Brussels and Eupen from the Beck family. The latter resulted in a series of pictures that accompanies Julians take on the material that Philippe handed him.
With the help of the Flanders Fields Museum, I got hold of more detailed information that could pinpoint the exact location of the gas attack. I spent a week in the area, figuring out the possible routes Frederick’s regiment must have followed and went on numerous nightly trips filming those spots. On the 9th of october 2022, exactly 104 years later, I was in the field where it all happened. Well, actually I documented the three locations: the two Julian had pointed me too and the one I discovered. I made ‘reconnaissance’ drawings of those places as they are now, just like my own great-grandfather Joe had done during his time when he was on the lookout with his friend Samuel. This resulted in an accordion fold sketchbook with three landscapes and with the nightly videofootage, I made a short film retracing the exact route I had finally discovered.
Back in the days when covid locked down our world, I answered a call from Claire Ducène who was looking for artists-researchers working in the field of history and archives, to start up a group project reflecting about the kind of work we did. After an extensive period of getting to know each other’s work through regular online presentations and conversations, we got an opportunity to create and present together at the Brussels institute for artistic research ISELP. With a group exhibition ahead of us, we started forging alliances within our group. In the summer of ’22 a residency at ISELP and La Métive brought most of us all physically together. The results of our individual and group efforts were presented at ISELP during a group exhibition that opened on January 25th 2023.
Here are some pictures of the exhibition, (read further underneath)
Pretty quickly in our presentation and research stage, I hooked up with Julian Walker and Philippe Beck connecting through our family histories that all had to do with the two world wars from last century. Julians grandfather Frederick was left with permanent damage to his eyesight due to a gas attack he suffered in a field in Houplines, near Armentière on 9 october 1918. Julian had previously investigated the matter, had documented the place and performed one of the songs of his grandfather. Philippe’s ancestors were situated in East Belgium, the German speaking part that was annexed to Belgium after WWI and reclaimed by Germany in WWII. His great-grandfather had left the area at the beginning of the war and worked for the german occupied government in Brussels, but also joined a resistance group. He had printed their pamphlets in his office. Meanwhile in Eupen, his grandfather and grandmother were enlisted in the German Wehrmacht and the labour service for the war effort. Another grandfather of underwent the same scenario but quickly deserted and joined the resistance too.
For my part, instead of diving into the Joe English history again, I presented the group the story and archival pieces of Molly English, which I explored earlier in ‘the outs and abouts of Molly English’.
We embarked on a common project, Borderlines and Frontlines, handing over the archival pieces and information to the others so each could work on a personal approach with other people’s materials.
My goal was to embark on a pilgrimage to the places where they had lived their ordeal, document that as precisely as possible and create new work from my personal perspective. I received a fragment of Frederick Walker’s war diary, some regiment information and two possible locations for the gas attack in Houplines as well as several addresses in Brussels and Eupen from the Beck family. The latter resulted in a series of pictures that accompanies Julians take on the material that Philippe handed him.
With the help of the Flanders Fields Museum, I got hold of more detailed information that could pinpoint the exact location of the gas attack. I spent a week in the area, figuring out the possible routes Frederick’s regiment must have followed and went on numerous nightly trips filming those spots. On the 9th of october 2022, exactly 104 years later, I was in the field where it all happened. Well, actually I documented the three locations: the two Julian had pointed me too and the one I discovered. I made ‘reconnaissance’ drawings of those places as they are now, just like my own great-grandfather Joe had done during his time when he was on the lookout with his friend Samuel. This resulted in an accordion fold sketchbook with three landscapes and with the nightly videofootage, i made a short film retracing the exact route I had finally discovered.
For the exhibition, with a group of 16 different artist each having their own output and collaborations, we presented our work as a common project: Philippe presented his personal work and 5 new portraits of our protagonists. Julian analysed and reworked a letter, in fourfold, of Molly English that she had sent during WWII to Kathleen Molloy, a relative in Waterford. He also presented four postcards – genuine WWI mail from soldiers to their family – he had erased to write a personal message to his grandfather. A third piece of his is a meticulous description of one of Philippes historical items: the doorknob of his great-grandfathers office. He also wrote a text on the wall as a reflection the common path we had walked.
My work consists of the sketchbook and the video called ‘The Field’
Together with Yves Geunes, we created an interface to browse alternatively through the archive that is our groups ever expanding body of work: the Fictive Archive Investigations…
A residency at ZSenne Artlab had me experimenting with some new idea’s for visual work. Although I strive for a low to no-waste way of living, it has to be said that is quite a challenge. Just to have an idea of how much I consume in packaging alone, I had been collecting every plastic package of (evidently non food) items I purchased over a few months time. Looking for new purpouse of these obsolete items, it was a challenge to find something for an item that, all in all, has a certain aesthetic quality. The inspiration came from my time in boarding school, where I captured spiders under a plastic package just to see how long I could keep them alive.
I played around with all kind of objects to combine them with, but in the end I stuck to the pierced stones I found on a Croatian beach last year. It made me think of the bell jars that used to clad people’s interiors.
birdsundecimalgogglesmapguessdisksticksallallUniversal Minutes on displayMarklin folders to browse through.
But maybe it’s better to just simply recycle them?
I’ve had the opportunity to work at GC Het Huys in Ukkel over the holidays, preparing for a load of new projects in the making. One of them is the Survival Social Club, a new project that builds further on the Extinction Survival Archive: this time we’re really preparing for the apocalypse.
The Survival Social Club is a participative project that gathers people around the idea of how to survive an impending climate apocalypse and how does that help us to create a better society today.
I took on the idea of the ‘Social Club’. Whether from the western capitalist elitist view like the British gentlemen’s clubs or from the socialist approach like the Cuban social clubs: we gather around food and drinks, discuss the matters at hand and concoct ideas to address the issues.
In a first development phase, I’ll start up from my own network and setup gatherings, inviting a group of 8 to 10 people that should bring the ingredients for a meal. (A first test to see if and how they will prepare). I will cook their meal on a simple camping/boat stove setup and confront them with the ‘extinction survival archive’. I’ll have them go through the scenario of possible apocalypses and their contribution to the solutions. Their conversations will be taken down in sketch-note drawings that serve as an archive and output for the work to follow. Concrete plans might be made, but the idea is to gather and instigate new connections. The physical artistic output of the project are the plans drawn out, ideas taken down and actions to be taken. These also serve as a basis for a further refined artistic work, by myself or others.
In this first phase, one of the issues to address is also how to organise and setup these groups, in order to create the structures needed. In the second phase the network should spread out and grow. With the gathered knowledge and a working strategy that is set, the Survival Social Club needs to go on the road and tour different locations and social backgrounds. A travelling kitchen and crew will setup wherever they can to gather new groups, idea’s and create an ever growing network of people, skills and knowledge. A third phase should connect and interconnect different social clubs that have formed and find ways of communicating and reflecting on several (sub)issues that arise through these gatherings.
Through these phases, the Survival Social Club will be nomadic but with the intent to also find a location that can serve as a hub and an example for those other social clubs to be setup. It should be a place to gather, collect, store, experiment, reflect and disclose all the results. It should serve as a laboratory as well as a library, as a place for individual comfort as well as commons and, why not, also to serve and protect.
If you feel like you want to join the Survival Social Club, don’t hesitate to get in touch…
some books from the Extinction Survival Archive for inspiration…
Na de honderdjarige herdenking van de eerste IJzerbedevaart in 2020 kreeg ik dit jaar weer de opdracht om een nieuwe IJzerbedevaart in elkaar te boksen. Een hele uitdaging om een tweede editie op mijn conto te schrijven en tegelijk de vernieuwing in het herdenken van deze honderdjarige traditie door te voeren. De thema’s vrede, vrijheid en verdraagzaamheid blijven uiteraard centraal staan, en na de insteek van het vorig jaar, om die plek weer een vrijplaats te laten zijn voor de hedendaagse stemmen in het perspectief van die honderdjarige traditie, was het geen sinecure om die stemmen mee te krijgen op die plek, in die traditie. Tegelijk was de opdracht er om de bedevaart niet enkel voor die dag klaar te stomen maar ook te zorgen voor een langduriger effect.
Ik ging aan de slag met schrijfster en regisseur Kathelijn Vervarcke en we werkten verschillende pistes uit waaruit we een IJzerbedevaart konden samenstellen. Zo kwamen we tot de realisatie van twee scenario’s rond de figuur van Lode De Boninge die ook in een interview met historici Prof.Dr. Jos Monballyu en Francis Weyns werd geduid.
Een eerste kortfilm van Kathelijn die deze zomer werd gedraaid, “Elke tijd zijn Lode” bekijkt het verhaal van De Boninge vanuit verschillende periodes in de geschiedenis, en werd in een ‘quasi-historische’ stijl opgenomen. We bootsten archiefbeelden na uit die tijden en doorspekten die met een mogelijks persoonlijke blik van De Boninge, vanuit de biechtstoel. Het materiaal moet ook dienen als educatief pakket voor leerlingen van de derde graad, dus staken we er doelbewust historische vormfouten in, zodat jongeren echt van vals beeldmateriaal leren herkennen.
“Lode De Boninge, eigenlijk Louis” is een rechtbankdrama (en ook dat is de klucht) van de hand van Kathelijne en haar Dakbroeders, waarbij de ‘kritische toponymie’ op flessen wordt getrokken. Naar analogie met de bedenkingen bij de ‘Verschaeve straten’ gaan we dieper in op het in vraag stellen van de historische feiten in het perspectief van de hedendaagse vragen die ze oproepen. Ook deze kortfilm maakt deel uit van het lespakket dat werd voorbereid.
Twee historici werpen vervolgens hun licht op de figuur van Lode De Boninge: Prof.dr. Jos Monballyu combineert zijn twee vakgebieden, recht en geschiedenis, en bestudeerde, naast een uitvoerig oeuvre over heksenvervolgingen, de rechtzaken die tijdens en na WO1 tegen vlaamsgezinden werden gevoerd. Hij plaatst het mythevormend discours over de IJzerheld De Boninge in het perspectief van de feitelijke vervolgingen en veroordelingen. Francis Weyns dan weer is de auteur van de eindverhandeling (RUG) die de geschiedenis van de IJzerbedevaarten in het interbellum bestudeerde en waar we al uitvoerig uit hebben geput voor de tentoonstelling en IJzerbedevaart editie van 2020. Hij beschrijft hoe de mythevorming ontstaat binnen een organisatie die balanceert tussen radicaal pascifisme en rabiaat nationalisme.
Extra element dit jaar was een uitvoerig interview die ik had met Nelly Maes, dit jaar 80, die op de bedevaart -eindelijk- het woord kreeg. Als voorbereiding op haar bijdrage en ook omdat het nu eenmaal belangrijk is als museum om die flamingante geschiedenis te bewaren en ontsluiten, had ik een uitvoerig gesprek met iemand die die bewogen geschiedenis van dichtbij heeft meegemaakt en de delicate balans altijd in perspectief heeft gezet.
Uiteindelijk was het resultaat een ‘klassieke’ bedevaart aan de voet van de toren met, naast Nelly Maes dus, bijdragen van Kristin De Winter, over het werk van het Vlaams Vredesinstituut, en Wim Claeys die drie liederen bracht: een fragment uit zijn voorstelling “IJzer” waarbij WO1 als een banale familieruzie wordt bekeken, een lied van Stan Hodister uit 1917, “Wij Mannen”, dat ook het liederlijke leven achter het front beschrijft, en “k’zou zo gere willen leven”, het anti-oorlogslied van Walter De Buck. Traditioneel werd de (mea culpa, dit jaar iets te lang uitgevallen!) IJzerbedevaart afgesloten met een bijdrage van voorzitter Paul De Belder en de bloemenhulde naar de crypte.
I had some mighty fine time again, residing at ZSenne Artlab for two weeks. Next to presenting The Archive of Untold Stories and The Extinction Survival Archive, I worked on a new film within the framework of the latter project: “Moments before the apocalypse”. I started shooting footage during a summer escape in Portugal and swiftly, the idea rose to do something meaningfull with it. But it wasn’t untill the world’s environmental problems caught up on us at our little sanctuary, that the right counterpoint for the storyline popped up. The Austrian world summit was going on and frankly, the news coming from there only made things more grimm and doomy, while I was having a great time enjoying nature and all it’s creatures. Greta Thunberg’s speech was a kick in the gut again, so I fiddled about with al the ‘acting’ metaphores it contained. Animals don’t act, but people do.
I got to finish a first draft of the movie and presented it, mainly to get some feedback from the visitors. At the moment the film is not ready. Running 45 minutes, it’s quite long and now I’m hesitating to go either for timestretching slow cinema or to focus on the story and drasticly ‘kill some darlings’. I will present it here after a second session of editing and mixing. Watch this space.
During those weeks I had some nice encounters. One was with a family from Glasgow on holiday in Brussels, who were curious so I presented some stories from the archive while the kids were having a blast with the children’s section of the Extinction Survival Archive. They were working in the arts too so we quickly found common ground. I forgot their names already of course, I hope they keep in touch.
On the last day, an ukrainien man came round, who only knew a few words of dutch (Museum? ja!), so it was quite difficult to interact about the archives. But he hung around for a while, checking out things. He asked for some water, I gave him a beer (Pivo?! santé!). And then some tobacco. After smoking outside, he came in and layed himself down on the cold floor, to listen to the film that was playing. The smoke must have hit him a bit too hard, he was nauseous. A little later, he asked for some paper, I only had an old covid-test certificate that had a blank back. (I recycle scrutinously.) He sat down, took his four colour bic pen and started drawing. He went looking for leaves and took some tobacco, mixed with beer, to color it in.
He drew my portrait. It’s the small things that make us happy at the archives…
How to survive in the city, with Ann Van de Vyvere
The “Archive of Untold Stories” project landed at ZSenne Artlab again. This edition further investigated the the archive as a way of presenting stories. The Extinction Survival Archive started during a previous residency at ZSenne Artlab. The pandemic has turned the attention away from an impending problem: The tipping point of our climate, the inescapable ecological disaster if we don’t take action. The apocalypse hasn’t been repelled, so we might as wel think about survival in such circumstances. How can I leave my children, who only know the internet as a source of knowledge, the necessary information if electricity might not even be available?
Last edition the premise resulted in a naive humbling collection of books, for parents and children. Now, I’m looking for people who can share the knowledge to survive such an apocalypse. This week I had a walk and a talk with Ann Van de Vyvere. More than ten years ago already, she and Gosie Vervloessem setup workshops and walks in the city, to discover edible plants and kook up some food with it. Crucial information for doomsday preppers who want to survive in the city.
We kicked off with a stand off, using the theatre replicas Davis Freeman gathered over the years for several of his shows. (We met on his production of the Steven Sondheim musical ‘Assassins’) So he did an excerpt of his piece ‘What you need to know‘. But soon it got clear that the solutions for this doomsday scenario in the city will need a totally different approach of reflection and experimentation. Ann wholeheartedly joined our little plan to setup a group of people to reflect upon the issues and think about how we can setup experiments.
In the end we took her lessons to practice and composed a salad from the findings around our block.
From may 17th to 30th, ‘The Archive of Untold Stories’ was hosted again at ZSenne ARTlab examining the archive as a presentation tool and presenting projects in different stages of completion. The archive boxes, old and new ones, can be opened up again and reveal their stories. A live broadcast on saturday 22nd, presented the contents of a brand new box: the Aquarius story. It’s a story that wanders through the life of the artist, where the zodiac figure keeps popping up in the strangest of places and times and at the same time, a wobbly spiritual prophecy about the world and it’s future. We travelled through time and dug up memories about the musical, an old friend, a dead composer and his inspiration. And with some luck, we’ll find some hope for the future…
Looking back it was quite the experience digging into a piece of personal history, getting in touch with the family of a lost friend, Thomas. I had to realise parts of my memory are already gone, not having updated the memories for almost twenty years. A humbling experience. The conversation with Thomas’ brother Immanuel was a long, very heartwarming videocall and in the end, we set out some plans for the future! We’re getting together to go through the drawings Thomas has left behind. To be continued…
The Johfra poster of Aquarius that started this strange story…
‘Aquarius’, an opera by Karel Goeyvaerts. Directed by Pierre Audi Musical Direction by Sian Edwards Stage Design by Christophe Hetzer Produced by Holland Festival and Vlaamse Opera Performed by Nederlands Kamerkoor, Symfonisch Orkest van de Vlaamse Opera, Warre Borgmans Karel Goeyvaerts composed this opera, his magnum opus, commissioned by the Antwerpen’93 European Cultural Capital organization, but never saw the first staging, as he passed away shortly before. Visual Kitchen created the visuals for the backdrops. Photo credits: Vlaamse Opera
The Extinction Survival Archive is a spin-off archive of the ‘Archive of Untold Stories’ where we look into the possibilities of survival in a post-apocalyptic world.
The Extinction Survival Archive started during a previous residency at ZSenne Artlab. The pandemic has turned the attention away from an impending problem: The tipping point of our climate, the inescapable ecological disaster if we don’t take action. The apocalypse hasn’t been repelled, so we might as wel think about survival in such circumstances. How can I leave my children, who only know the internet as a source of knowledge, the necessary information if electricity might not even be available?
Last edition the premise resulted in a naive, humbling collection of books, for parents and children. Now, I’m looking for people who can share the knowledge to survive such an apocalypse. This time I was talking to (an) expert(s) (one had to cancel due to illness) and our findings were presented live on Saturday february 21st at 17h. With Ir. Geert Palmers, a founder of the durable energy study bureau 3E, we were challenging the energy question under those circumstances. Check out the full interview here:
With the collaboration of Davis Freeman and Stephy Maes who runs the multicam stream. The presentation is english spoken.
Funded by the cultural activities support by the Flemish Community
The Archive of Untold Stories is a research project on how to use the archive as a narrative, using ‘raw’ materials to tell stories. The numerous boxes contain a mixture of projects and idea’s, all in different states of completion, some merely a concept, others as good as ready to go into production.
For this live broadcast, we took out one of te boxes that connect to my heritage and talk about Molly English (°1880+1956): an independent woman who made her own life in a time such things weren”t always obvious. Through a box of pictures, postcards, obituaries, news paper clippings and objects – a donation by Hilde Verstraete I received in 2018 – we try to find out more about the life and times of Molly. While doing so we get an insight in the wobbly path collecting memories and describing heritage sometimes takes, with contradicting testimonials, stubborn misinterpretations or in this occasion even: overenthousiast fictionalising by my partner in crime.
The broadcast was funded by the Flemish Community via the cultural activities primes.
Errata: Was it the nerves or sheer excitement? I missed some accuracy in the dates I should have memorised, so here are some errata straigthened out:
– Henry English was born march 17th, 1853 (St.Patrick’s!), left Ireland in 1862 for London, and arrived in Bruges on januari 22, 1863. (the dates of decease of his father Thomas English, born 181?, and mother Judith Halligan, born 1813, are unknown but situated after 1860 and before 1862)
– The two pictures, one of Molly English and one of the marriage of Raf English and Marie-Josée Daele are to be situated in 1938.
I had the pleasure of being invited for a residency of two weeks at ZSenne Art Lab. The intention was to research and experiment with different forms of presentation, looking for solutions to tell stories with pictures and objects in a different and personal way. I came up with the archive as a form of unfolding different spatial scenarios. It refers to the historical research I’ve been doing a lot lately, spending a lot of time in different archives, but also to the temporality of items and their meanings.
The Archive of untold stories sprouted from the urge to find a way of presenting some of the projects that have been developing over the last months and years. These all vary in different stages of completion, some are over, some are ready to present, some are merely vague ideas still locked-in in a collection of items. By gathering all these projects box per box in an archive and a public space, it also gave me the opportunity of presenting the links between them, developing themes through different projects. When people visited, they related to different themes and boxes, but it always started long conversations that resulted in me getting lots of new paths to discover.
During the first days I mainly regrouped the items in separate collections and presented the keynotes that describe the different projects: Mystic Land, Marklin, Strada, Grenzen, The extinction survival archive and Molly.
As wel as some leftover prints, catalogues and books from older series, (Stadsbiografie, Bastards and Heldenhulde) a selection of prints from ‘Mystic Land’ were presented as an introduction to my work. Mystic Land used historical research to define places and routes to travel, resulting in a series that exposes how man uses his environment, manipulates it to his benefit, but not always to great result.
Building further on that environmental theme, the Marklin series took up the most attention as it is on the brink of completion. It was presented with the item that connects it through time, the inspiration from my childhood, a papier-maché maquette, in front of a projection illustrating the size of prints this series needs to be presented in.
Gathering the material from over 15 years of shooting these images, I composed several series looking for formal connections and combinations. The Marklin series is ready for print and display, but I’m still thinking about counterpoint objects like the papier-maché maquette: maps, wireframes, 3D prints, scrap sculptures etc…
Building and thinking further on the environmental, Strada is the next project that tackles the theme. Back with my feet on the ground I would be exploring the highway researching its quality as a landscape and as a biotope. It is temporarily on hold due to a complete blocking of the flemish roads and traffic agency. The issue being safety, I suggested that knowing the problem may also resolve it, resulted in a categorical ’Njet’.
Another project in development is ‘Grenzen’ (Limits, but merely a working title). My ancestral research got me greatly interested and thoroughly knowledgeable about flemish nationalism. That movement has had a great impact on politics and society in the country. It has defined a language border, regional borders and many issues during its development over the last century. Like in Mystic Land I’m planning to meticulously travel alongside this demarcation and reflect on this division, supported by a study on limology, compiled and written by an expert in the field, Luc Boeva, who confirmed his aid and collaboration. I’m also looking into financing a residency in Dandong, China, on the North Korean border to do likewise research and creation on that border and the specific aspects of the bordertown. It will be a combination of landscape and documentary photography.
Shortly before starting the residency I came up with another idea to work on: The Extinction Survival Archive. The state of our global environment, the state of national and international politics, it all seems to be announcing an impending doom. While previously working on this theme with the company Random Scream (the pieces Investment, Expanding Energy, 7 promises and A better place) it seems twenty years of activism hasn’t really amounted up to much resolve: I should instead be organising the survival of my offspring. If our systems collapses, how can I provide the necessary information for my kids (or grandkids) who only have known the internet as a source of information when electricity will probably not be available to power a global network. Naively, I collected everything I had gathered from my ancestors (and just couldn’t part from): the horticulture courses from my grandfather, pocketbooks on basic building techniques from my architect father, books my parents had about health, natural medicine, internal medicine and even my own ‘SAS survival guide’ from my scouting days. It also includes a section of children’s books on geography, physics, the human body…
The Extinction Survival Archive instigated many long talks with visitors. We reflected on how a new monetary system would be needed and eventually we would go back to seeds as a payment method. How brussels people grew vegetables in public parks during WWII, or grew mushrooms, rhubarb and chicory in their basements. Reflections on ‘the power of the archive’. What would we need to stock in order to survive? The next step in this project will be starting up a Brussels ’preppers’ community: doomsday preparers are a common phenomenon in the states, so there must be a lot of knowledge. The aim is to gather and prepare for doomsday in a metropolitan environment.
Finally, one of the most bewildering boxes contained a donation I received from Hilde Verstraete, granddaughter of Karel, who was a friend of my great-great-grandfather Henry English. It contained a photo album, loose pictures, letters and postcards from my great-grand-aunt Molly, who must have been a peculiar person in her days. She was crippled as a child due to a medical mistake, stayed single all her life and travelled all over, even to ‘indochine’. She had a career as a governess, maitre-d’hotel, a Red Cross nurse in the UK during WWI, worked for the Belgian government in London during WWII and eventually retired back in Bruges. I got to know of all this because I still have two 90 year old great-aunts, twins, who have known her in the days. I had gotten first impressions on her extraordinary life when researching for ‘Mystic Land’. As she was the one who organised lodging for her three sisters and little brother in the UK during WW1, I had visited the addresses in the UK in 2016, because Joe went to visit them during his leave from the battlefields. Now I have even more addresses in the UK, in Biarritz, Knokke, Hasselt and Brussels, places where she lived as a guest in befriended households. From Waterford in Ireland, I received copies of all the letters she had sent to another friend of the family, Kathleen Molloy, that had been carefully preserved by her offspring, Renée Fraher. There’s material in there for a new quest, not sure what it could turn out to be: a documentary or a vodcast. There’s some urgency while there’s still witnesses to talk to. To many of the visitors, this was one of the most intriguing ‘untold stories’.
While I would have wanted to do even more creatively, I must say the concept of presenting an archive of several projects in different stages of completion, felt like the right way of dealing with my work. It has something ancient, archaic, and refers back to my sources, the historical research and the knowledge I have been accumulating. But it also stays an active source, it keeps growing, keeps building up. Even if not every individual project will see completion, it enables me to keep working on my material and present it to a public, even if I can’t find the resources to start up new creations or the funding commissions keeps treating my work as irrelevant.
