Blind cities
I see suburb buildings as urban icons. In the past, the city was built around the church, a community which symbolized peace and unity. Today, these inhabited towers have swelled in the suburbs, contributing to the violence and isolation. My series blind cities (villes aveugles) combines two aspects, both aesthetical and allegorical as related to the difficult situation in the suburbs.
Formally speaking, I aim at exploring the concept of transfiguration of the real world. I very much adhere to Baudelaire’s words: “give me your mud and I will turn it into gold”. Do we not see suburbs as ugly, shabby and dangerous? In those buildings, I suppress what makes them modern living places… windows. These buildings emerge as monumental urban structures, contemporary totems or gigantic mineral bodies, reminiscent of the middle-ages fortresses or blockhaus’ war-like silhouette. This metamorphosis creates a semantic metaphor of the violence which reigns in these communities, images of a ghetto. The series also questions the concept of “window”. There is no way-in, no way-out, just an interruption of communication, hermetic and frozen consciousnesses.
I am not condemning those suburbs, nor the people who live there, nor those who despise them. I am just observing the multiple points of view. The conclusion strives to be politically neutral and emotionally evoking. My series admits to be ambivalent. It is a mix of fiction, symbolism and documentary.
Louis Delbaere June 2008
Play club
In the middle of this world dedicated to childhood, I had the feeling of an oppressive place with overproduction overwhelming us. The shelves seemed so overloaded that they became abstract and crushing. It seems to me that this will to display more and more turns the toys’ counter into walls of strange objects. You can’t tell one from the other, they mix up and catch us into blood-red corridors .This set of pictures tries, through numerical interferences, to give an interpretation of this strange feeling which puzzles me: did we sacrifice the enchanting sight of the toys department store to the frantic and dehumanized exhibition of products ?
Louis Delbaere October 2007 |
