16 sounds of Bruges, Het Entrepot, August 2018
16 sounds of Bruges / 2018
This is the result of a workshop and a participative art project developed with the local community of Bruges. "16 sounds of Bruges" is an installation piece that shares the stories of several Belgians migrating towards Romania after the dissolution of the European Union, in the fictional year of 2028.
Young Belgians from Bruges were asked to create a character from scratch and to craft a dystopia around Flanders that ends up crushing the European Union in 2024, making the everyday life more and more difficult. Their characters in the end had to find it unbearable to live in Belgium by 2028, and had to decide migrating towards Romania. Each of them had to create a disaster and reason for a Belgian to live in Romania. Each story is recorded as a testimony of the past. (Daniel Djamo)
It’s the year 2028. Four years ago, the European Union fell. The changes caused by this event resulted in an alteration of the economic landscape, and an inversion of the labour migration: ’16 sounds of Bruges’ follows the fictitious stories created by young people from Bruges and their quest for happiness, while they try to reach Eastern Europe. The contemporary flux from East to West, is reversed in 2028. Although this project is set in the future, it at the same time manages to tackle sensitivities present today.
The interactive installation of ’16 sounds of Bruges’ creates an imaginary archive. Daniel Djamo collects, as if he were an archaeologist from the future, stories and artefacts from a time yet to come. The foundation for this work lies in the imaginary and the fantasy of the participants. Working together with them, ’16 sounds of paper’ starts to take shape, resulting in a sound installation presented together with the different written texts. (Bert Puype, curator)
special thanks: Het Entrepot, BLVRD, Radio Villa Botta, Bert Puype and Elke Desutter