Plaster plates

Plaster plates, 2022.

Seven plaster plates cut in hollow + one blank plate.
40 cm sides x 10 to 12 cm thickness.

Exhibition Traversées (Crossings), solo installation at the 1st floor of the CACLB, Contemporary Art Center of the Belgian Luxembourg, Buzenol-Montauban, in collaboration with the Musée Gaumais, Virton, Belgium, 2022.

Five of the plaster plates reproduce in hollow the hands from various objects that can be seen in the Musée Gaumais and the Musée Lapidaire, near the CACLB. These hands evoke both the conflicts and exchanges of all kinds that have taken place in this region bordered by several frontiers — which have shifted several times over the centuries — and synthesize the external contributions that have played a great part in transforming, enriching and complexifying what is the very essence of Belgium.

Unlike humans, many of whom seek to delimit territories in a definitive way, other living beings have a much more fluid relationship to space, such as the bird and the bees, which are also present — although still in a hollowed-out form — in this series.

One of the plates is left blank: one can project one's own imagination of the missing object that would represent the forgotten absence.

Be aware that some of the photos may give the impression that the pieces are in relief when in fact they are all hollow.