Vincent Meessen shows his installation Ultramarine at Kunstenfestival Watou, Poperinge
03/07 – 05/09/2021
Belgian artist Vincent Meessen often works collaboratively, drawing on the combined knowledge of collectives to conceive exhibitions and projects that investigate the construction of colonial modernity and its impact on contemporary experience.
Vincent Meessen shows the immersive film installation Ultramarine, which focuses on a mesmerizing spoken word performance of the self-exiled African-American poet Gylan Kain, whose performances in the late 1960s were a primary influence on the development of rap. Accompanying music is improvised by Belgian jazz drummer and percussionist Lander Gyselinck. The textile display is the result of a collaboration with textile designer Diane Steverlynck and Emilie Lecouturier, scenographer.
In the blue layered textile structure that frames Ultramarine and multiple references throughout, the colour blue is the chromatic, historical and discursive filter through which the film is experienced. It is an alternative way to read history through color, ultramarine referring all at once to a pigment, overseas territories, trade, colonial and slave routes.
Practical:
Saturday, 3 July, to Sunday, 5 September 2021
Grote Markt 1, 8970 Poperinge (B)
Open from Wednesday to Monday, every day from 11h to 19h
Closed on Tuesdays
Open on public holidays