"As I sit here to write something about ‘fragility’, I remember the request I received from rekto:verso (magazine for culture and critique) to write something about an example of resistance. I automatically thought of ‘the standing man’ on Taksim square (a young man who stood there in front of the portrait of Ataturk for eight hours in June 2013). Instead of joining his chums in the protest against the regime in Gezi park, he chose not to choose, thereby originating the dance of yes or no, for or against, oil or slavery, steak or porridge and found himself momentarily in another space. Another well-known example is the character Julian from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Porcile who renounces the post-war inheritance of his stinking rich father but also refuses to go and piss against the Berlin War with his fiancée. Julian goes and lives with the pigs. That other space is a precarious state (the young man is not still on the square and Julian was eventually eaten by the pigs). A fragile start.
My answer to the request from rekto:verso got lost in the email concepts file and didn’t make the magazine’s deadline. What you do find is an article by theatre-maker Simon Allemeersch who writes: "In many cases it is a minor situation. (...) I often think that the trick is not to work hard. (...) It always has to be a matter of love and desire. (...) What it comes down to, I think, is remaining mentally agile.”
This work is called abc. A line of to-scale replicas of mass products whose form and logo are familiar to most people. Each product stands for a letter from the Latin alphabet and is carefully and manually modelled, stuck, cut or coloured in. Activities which demand a certain craftsmanship and commitment in terms of time.
The 'products alphabet' was put together during a workshop for pupils from the Mozaïekschool, a multicultural school in Ghent. With the children we brainstormed about which letters they associate with which brand names."
FRAGIL can be seen at GB58, Marché aux Poulets / Kiekenmarkt, 1000 Brussels from September 18th to October 18th 2015 (Wednesdays to Sundays from 11 to 19.00 hrs) www.zinneke.org
