scènes troublées

2009, slide installation, multi screen, black & white, dimensions variable

/ installation view  (click images to enlarge) /




   





(* page under construction)


scènes troublées (troubled scenes) is a modulatable installation of monumental black & white slide projections showing broad and deserted, and seemingly trivial landscapes or places. In their aesthetics hides a deeply burdened poetry though. These found images are in origin photographs from a belgian colonial family that once lived in eastern Congo. They are dated between 1940 and 1943 and are taken in the border region between Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, in the heart of Africa. Throughout times these landscapes have been the scenery of different tragedies: colonialism, Rwandan genocide, Congolese civil wars,... Images of endless flows of refugees like we know them from TV news are to be situated here.

This purified selection of images is now given a timeless character. Being registrations of landscapes, originally limited in time and space, they are ‘stretched’ to a certain everlastingness and generality, which alows a Hineininterpretierung of the original material. The specific combination of images in this installation setting creates new relations and a subtle tension field. Besides, the raised expectation of change and evolution, inherent to the medium of projection, is not being fulfilled. In combination with the buzzing and rattling sound of the projectors it triggers a strong mental experience of time and space. scènes troublées wants to examine the landscape as a bearer of meaning and the way this relates to personal memory.


scène#1: Lac Kivu, Bukavu
scène#2
scène#3: Lugogo
scène#4: Lugogo
scène#5
scène#6
scène#7: Bac de La Kama
scène#8: Lac Kivu, Bukavu
scène#9
scène#10: Katana
scène#11: L'escarpement de Kamaniola
scène#12
scène#13
scène#14
scène#15: Lugogo



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exhibitions _

Time is a book - TIME Festival, Ghent (BE), curators Dirk Braeckman & Els Dietvorst, 2009
Shot by Both Sides - bkSM #8, Strombeek/Mechelen (BE), curators Luk Lambrecht & Koen Leemans (duo exhibition with Johan Grimonprez), 2009


bibliography _

TIME is a book - published by TIME Festival, Ghent, 2009, ISBN 9789076979991
Pieter Geenen - The Moving Land - published by bkSM, Strombeek/mechelen, 2009, ISBN 9789077193259
In Transit. 5 jaar visuele kunsten in Brussel - published by Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, Brussels, 2008, ISBN 9789075915006






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with the financial support of Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie & beeldende kunst Strombeek/Mechelen