Brussels Series — Thomas Kuijpers

The Brussels Series, 2016

After the terror attacks in Paris in 2015, the focus went straight to Brussels. The perpetrators where supposedly hiding in the city, and planning more of these cruel attacks in Brussels. As I was following these events closely, the city went on lockdown, leaving deserted streets, only filled with military. I was curious to about this, being priviliged never to experience a European city ‘at war’. So I went there, to see with my own eyes what was happening in Brussels. Over a prologned time I kept visiting Brussels, as the situation in the city inspired me and brought me new thoughts on how a situation like this is shaped and becomes this odd alternate reality overnight.

The series is shaped around several experiments that came together in the solo show Paradigma II in LhGWR.

Parking ticket given during terror threat level 4 in Brussels, 2015, 2016

parking ticket with foil print on passepartout,
framed with museum glass - 41 cm x 25 cm

Shampoo, 2016

custom made flags (one black one pink), cotton, with textile paint + found cardboard box - 90 cm x 150 cm

When walking the streets of Brussels, intoxicated by all the images I’ve been watching and all the articles I’ve been reading over the past few weeks, I start to realise that I, like a lot of people in the west, am also under the influence of the information that has been passed on to me trough various media channels. I cross the street and step over a flat folded carton box, which immediately draws my attention. As the wind blows the carton towards me, I feel some sort of obscure interest towards this piece of rubbish right away, simply because I notice the box has Arabic writing on it. It’s almost exiting to look at it. The wind blows again, and the box flips over to the other side, which has English writing. I see those Arabic writings just meant ‘shampoo’, and the box was a container of shampoo bottles. I pick up the box and take it home. At home I photograph the word 'shampoo' and I decide to print the word on a flag. One in black / white, and one in pink / silver. The box is presented between the two flags spinning, as if it is some sort of Rosetta stone.