Don‘t Cry Over Spilllllled Tears Anymore
February 2024 at Art Au Centre Liège, Belgium
performative Installation
Second hand bought vases, glases and bowls, tripods, coloured water
If an inanimate object sheds a tear one can become a witness of a mystery.
A “non-space” transforms into a space of attraction.
Weeping statues are a phenomena which fascinates people around the globe, no matter their belief skepticism or astonishment; and no matter the impossibilities about this sometimes tiniest tear.
At the same time to witness a stranger in the public shedding a tear seems inappropriate, too intimate.
I am interested into the tear itself as an emotional expression which creates connections in various senses. My focus lies in those moments where meaning undergoes a shift, not just in a literal and practical sense, but in a critical engagement with one’s surroundings. The tear is just an image in this scenery and exercising a shift of meaning.
I am interested into developing working and thinking structures that on one hand construct themselves a logic and on the other hand execute it in itself. The site specific installation is itself a structure which purpose is solely to shed tears and collect them. The liquid consists of oils, honey, red wine, salt and water; a mixture similar to the liquids that had been found on weeping statues. The spatial system is neither a miracle or a hoax, it performs itself a shift in meaning, that is either witnessed by passersby or not. The building, as a weeping statue comes to life; is a messenger.
What do buildings observe, keep and store of our daily lives?
The hole of a nail that has been in the wall to hold a photo of a friend is a silent witness of tragic goodbyes, private breakdowns, sad phonecalls, unanswered bootycalls, of a joke that was not laughed about, or a hug of two strangers. Every Building is in a mutual relationship to its surrounding.