Mmmonk

Medieval Monastic Manuscripts - Open - Network - Knowledge.

It is a collaborative project between the Library of Bruges, the University Library of Ghent, the Grand Seminary Ten Duinen in Bruges and the Diocese of Ghent.

I was asked as an artist to participate in this project. As an artist, I drew inspiration from the manuscripts in their possession as part of the Mmmonk project. To shed more light on this piece of heritage, an expo is linked to it with artworks inspired by the manuscripts.

For this project I am trying to paint on parchment. The same material from which the manuscripts are made. 
As inspiration for the images, I based myself on pictures I took during the preparations for the 'Blindekes procession' in Bruges. That procession is completely in the spirit of the time of the manuscripts.

Check the complete project on their website

Kunstenal Kaapt

This open call by Kunstenal - a Bruges platform - was to transform the site of former company Van Marcke into a playground for local artists. The entire site could be used for
creative excesses.

Overschaduwd, acryl on fiber cloth, Bruges, 2021

Op eigen hout

This open call from Kunstwerkt was to make an interpretation of the ‘rechtvaardige rechters’ of the painting ‘Lams God’ made by Jan & Hubert Van Eyck.

Onvoltooid verleden tijd, Oil on panel,55 x147 cm, 2020

On the point

We – a partnership of Belgian, Dutch, British and Macedonian cultural organisations – joined forces to address this socio-cultural challenge. In a two-year programme co-funded by Creative Europe, we will recruit and travel with an international network of young creatives. In each of our four cities (Bruges, Rotterdam, Brighton and Skopje), the creatives will artistically work on challenges formulated by each guest city. In everything we do, we keep our goal in mind: to break down barriers that hinder certain groups of people to participate in current arts and cultural initiatives. We seek to co-create and set up a structural exchange with these under-represented groups of young people.

– credits to https://onthepoint.eu/about/

Intervention that will never happen
Team Bruges had the idea to do an intervention in the citycenter of Bruges. Each in there own discipline. Like you know covid-19 made a shift in all our lives and the intervention didn’t go through in there original idea. This was my idea;

The intervention consists of a route of 7 locations that are named after painters (within the gates) that form a route through Bruges. At each location there will be a 5 min expo with portraits of the OTP group. This act demands a place for young creative people and shines light on the shortage of space in Bruges.

Materials;  20 portraits -18 x 24 cm – Oil on canvas board

The locations;
Cornelis De Moor street
Joseph Suvée street
Jacob Van Oost street
Jan Van Eyck square
Hans Memling/ Wednesday market
Pieter Pourbus street
Eugeen Vansteenkiste street

Brighton Fabrica 

Online workshop May 2020 – On The Plate

We want each OTP participant to create a recipe for an OTP recipe book. The editorial frame for the book is: recipes that reflect the individuals and the places in which they currently find themselves (ie at home, restricted to a very specific neighbourhood for shopping and exercise). What we mean by a recipe is a formula that can be repeated or enacted by someone else to create the dish or experience that the creator would like to share. check otpBrighton on insta for al the recipes.

Recipe for handling disappointment;

What do you need;
Disappointment – A big bowl – A fridge – Patience – Some paper – Your favorite drawing equipment

1.Get disappointed
Example; You have been waiting to start at your new job , for two months now. You’re very excited because you’ve been looking for a job several months now. Your new employer give you a contract proposal and added you on the whats’app group with your new colleagues. So you assume after the lock-down you’ll start at your job. Suddenly your phone rings…
He tells you, you can’t start because of savings in the company. End of story, your unemployed again.

2. Let your feelings out
   A whole range of emotions will come out of you; disbelief, anger, sadness and disappointment.
   Let them free, we need them!
3. In the bowl
   Now you have all your feelings together, put them in a bowl en stir them around until you have ‘mixed feelings’.
4. Cool down
   Put your feelings in the fridge to cool down. This need some patience. It may take a day or two.
5. Reflection
   When it’s all cooled off we can reflect on what has happened. We write it down and associate it with images. Now we have an idea or concept we can do something with.6. Create the dish
   For this part you can use any creative equipment of preference. We take our idea and create it.
6. Eat this !
   When it’s done you can sit back and relax. Something negative is now positive, and your former employer don’t know what he is missing. YOU’RE AWESOME!

Skopje, Public Room

Workshop 11-14 November 2019 – Design a mobile garden 

For this workshop we had the assignment to design a mobile garden for people with Down.
The main idea is to use the design in Public Room and people with Down get the chance to garden.
We where dived in five groups, I worked together with Laura Hargreaves and Ljubica Bojadjieva.

Seed.Eat.Repeat.
Our concept was that all greenery should by edible. So Vegtables, edible flowers and herbs.
Anyone who uses the design would be able to harvest and to cook with these fresh ingredients in Public Room or anywhere else.
The design is mobile and can be divided in three pieces if necessary. There is a place for sitting and storage, for hanging pots on the vertical, seeding in the planter box and planting in the little plant box. The design would be mainly out of wood, except for the vertical would be in metal.

Rotterdam MaMA 

Workshop 13 October 2019  – The arc de memoires, by Yorbi Gutierrez
The Arc de Triomphe and similar structures were built as memorial in which important local events were documented and honoured as memories by text and images.
The object of this workshop is to experiment with different forms in which memories of post-war rebuilding can be visually expressed. For this theme the participant will focus on memories based in the places where they come from.

We start firstly by (co)describing a general situation where exclusion and/or inclusion during the post-war rebuilding are the main themes and that everybody could relate to on a personal level. Based on what feelings and memories this description stirs up – everybody is going to create a physical manifestation by firstly coming up with concepts, using whichever discipline the participants feel comfortable with.

During the second day, the participants will be using wood and the different tools in a workshop to create a physical structure – based on their concepts.

Bruges  Entrepot

Workshop April 2019 - Is there place for young creatives?
Is there place for young creatives? How can smaller cities that have big artistic neighbouring cities (Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, …) be places that are artistically relevant, contemporary, young, vibrant?

In this workshop we discussed about this problem and created a big mindmap. From that we created something specific. We thought of a portable space with multi functional purpose. Because there isn’t a lot of space in the centre of Bruges where young creatives can experiment and create.
With this solution young people may have a change of showing their artistic talent or artwork in the centre where they can me more visable.
This ‘Space Invader’ is a temporary, portable pavilion with a stage and roof like a tent. So during summer you can remove the roof if needed. It should be light and easy to carry, so it can be set-up anywhere.

Improvisatie Performance

– BIES & The Liquid Wall,de Basis, Sint-Kruis, 2019

The Liquid Wall vormt de setting voor een nieuwe voorstelling van BIES (Brugse ImprovisatiesSpelers) waarbij het zal fungeren als interactief paviljoen tussen het publiek en de improvisatiespelers. Het paviljoen heeft een kruisvormig plan met een opening in het midden die zo 4 kamers afbakent. 4 Kunstenaars gaan ter plaatse aan de slag met input van het publiek om een invulling voor elke kamer te tekenen. Hierbij worden ze live begeleid door 4 muzikanten die aan de hand van improvisatie tot een samenspel komen. Wanneer de tekeningen af zijn, starten de improvisatiespelers met hun voorstelling waarbij ze vertrekken van alles wat ze getekend zien staan op de wanden van de kamers. Hiermee hopen we een nieuwe en boeiende voorstelling neer te zetten waarbij alles rond improvisatie en cocreatie draait.
Artist; Frieke Verlé, Leen Vandorpe, Florien Allemeersch & Simon Franssens
Pictures; Jason Slabbynck