On the 29th June, Brussels will rival the beautiful architecture of the Musée de la Photo in Charleroi and the dynamism of the Formu of Antwerp, for a unique soirée: 100 Belgian photographers, 100 identical wooden boxes, placed in the ground. On this evening, each visitor will choose a box at random, as will many others, to discover the images installed in their wooden caskets by each of the photographers.
Each photographer will be allocated a box to put their images in, sometimes accompanied by texts, proofs, photocopies, drawings, and other objects connected with their work. Sometimes they will just place the images, mysterious and silent, in their rough wooden boxes measuring sixteen by twenty-five centimetres.
“I gave no other instructions other than to imagine a private box that would be dug up by unknown hands. Some of them just played with the formats without enclosing any information, others really customised their boxes.In a way it’s a kind of veiled reference to the boxes you find at a flea market with old pictures of different sizes and origins.”, explained Vincent Beckmann, initiator and organiser of the event. “Since we don’t have any white walls, nor security guards and even less budget for large exhibitions, we had to bend over backward to create the event, as for example the screenings given by the photographers during the soirées titled Extra Fort. This year, with a sense of humour, helped by the income from our events and the support for the programme from Recyclart, we organised the performance of the boxed installation as a Photography Museum, since Brussels is deprived of it..”
If the poster is as promising as it is varied, particularly with Bieke Depoorter, Nick Hannes, Sébastien Van Malleghem, David Widart, Thomas Van Den Driessche, Marie Sordat, Léonard Pongo, Zaza Bertrand and Marc Wendelski, and ninety-one others, the installation doesn’t claim to represent all Belgian photography. “They are just human beings, passionate and different, who come from the three communities – Flemish, Walloon, Brussels”, Vincen Beeckman explained. So they are photojournalists, artists and designers, young and old, famous and unknown. There are some Magnum photographers, but also some beginners who already have a clear view of the world and others who are late starters.
Some of them have already shown their work at the Extra Fort screenings, also programmed by Vincen Beeckman. A member of the former collective BlowUp, this documentary photographer is committed to using photography to build up a link between the worlds that surround him and increasing socio-artistic experimentation. Although it’s not on the museum poster, he is showing, on the other hand, his work on asylum-seekers at the Foundation A. Stiching in Brussels.
“I love photography, It’s my terrestrial, if not celestial, nourishment. I’m always surprised by the quality of the work and the initiative of all the photographers” the photographer went on. “I don’t have, here, any other criteria that to show the people whose work speaks to me, hoping that this could be a springboard for them. The intention is also to bring the world of photography closer to people by being able to physically manipulate images.”
This wandering museum of photography will create a dialogue amongst passers-by, since on July 13th and August 3rd the boxes will be placed in the streets of Marolles, then in Antwerp in mid-September and certainly elsewhere later.
Cilou de Bruyn
Cilou de Bruyn is an author and consultant in photography. She lives and works in Brussels, in Belgium.
Musée de La Photo de Bruxelles
Thursday 29th June 2017 from 5.00pm to 11.00pm.
Free admission,
Gare Bruxelles-Chapelle
25 rue des Ursulines
1000 Bruxelles
Belgique
http://www.recyclart.be/fr/agenda/le-musee-de-la-photographie-de-bruxelles
Vincen Beeckman, A castle made of sand
Fromm 23rd April to 25th June 2017
Av. Van Volxem, 304
1190 Bruxelles
Belgique
