to the artists, designers and craftspeople who think I call their work kitsch... this is NOT the case, it refers to my own work

Jul 18, 2011

coal, history and colour

ARTour 2011
DERIVATIONS
until 28.08.2011

a biennial art tour in the south part of the country...
we start the tour at the old mine site Bois-du-Luc



First we get to see a video explaining the work we'll see later on.
The artistic project involves a whole community.  Many nationalities live in the "cité" of Bois-du-Luc.  Children and adults produce vibrant colours with pigments and walk up the coal bing (spoil tip, boney pile, gob pile, pit heap - I had to look this one up, we call them terril (fr)).



It is a steep walk uphill



it has been raining a lot lately and the path is soft and tricky



the coal waste is sliding downhill, a few attempts are made to keep the 'soil' in place



the ridges of waste are visible all neatly lying next to one another like a giant pudding



on top of the hill the remnants of machinery






view from the top over the city and in the distance more coal bings (if this is not the right word, will someone correct me?)





back to the art project...

dead pieces of wood and roots have been scrubbed clean and painted by the children and grandchildren of people who worked in this mine.



orange stands for the spices that north Africans have brought with them from their homeland



red reminds the children of Spanish and Italian descent of the vivid colours in the south of Europe








we missed the blue and yellow roots



pink and orange roots ... fading beauties



We might have seen more spectacular similar installations but the particular attraction here is that this was made by a uniting people with a different background paying respect to their ancestors who came here to work hard and built a better life.

project by
EN SURFACE
the roots of Bois-du-Luc







related post
infractions - Fred Périé

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