HD, 11’20”, 16:9, colour, stereo, 2016
Supported by Centrale for Contemporary Art Brussels; Flemish Community; ARGOS Centre for Art and Media Brussels
On the walls of the local Belgian Club in Delhi, Ontario (Canada) hangs a painting depicting Saint Catherine’s Square, a square in the heart of the Belgian Capital of Brussels. For the many Belgian immigrants in this particular Canadian region the painting evokes the memory connected to it, which helps to define and enhance the community’s identity.
home metaphorically illustrates the concept of communities, the construction of national identity and the potential loss of it after migration. Both realities, Brussels and Canada, are connected by the sound, which mutates from the busy square in Brussels to the deserted space of the club of the Belgian diaspora.
This film travels from the detailed and vivid memory of a place and time once called home, to the vague and blurred remains of this memory, which got exchanged for a new reality, a new home.
At the point when the first generations of Belgian immigrants started vanishing, the Delhi Belgian Club gradually stopped its activities. In this film we’re allowed to cast one last glance at what once has been and is about to disappear forever now cultural assimilation has set in. As an era came to an end the club closed down for good soon after and the building was ultimately demolished.
Selected exhibitions & screenings:
Level Five Brussels 2020; FLIGHT / Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Genoa 2020; Nunnery Gallery London 2018; That One Film Festival Muncie 2018; aDifferent Festival Milwaukee 2018; ARGOS Centre for Art and Media Brussels 2017; DOBRA Festival Internacional de Cinema Experimental Rio de Janeiro 2017; Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles Paris 2017; West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival Morgantown 2017; Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival Hawick 2017; Centrale for Contemporary Art Brussels 2016