The Stone Road
15 Nov - 13 Dec 2008
THE STONE ROAD
On Track. Off Track. Memorising the Mid-World. Walking the Fifth-Space
November 15 – December 13, 2008
A project by Orla Barry, Wim Cuyvers, Els Dietvorst, Nikolaus Gansterer, Johanna Kirsch
Production: Firefly vzw (Brussels); Partners: Jan van Eyck Academie (Maastricht), Kunsthalle Exnergasse (Vienna), argos (Brussels) & kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels)
Since 2006, a group of artists and an architect (Wim Cuyvers, Orla Barry, Els Dietvorst, Nikolaus Gansterer, Johanna Kirsch) has been working on the “The Stone Road”. The reflection on the place began as a research project along the Belgian motorway N6 (Chausée de Mons) which stretches from the south of Brussels to Mons in the direction of France. The “Chaussée” was once a route along which numerous pilgrims began their journey to Santiago de Compostela. Today, it winds its way through parts of Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia. The N6 becomes a global prototype of the motorway stretching its urban tentacles from one city to the next out into the landscape and its accelerated lines create inner spaces: transit zones filled with emptiness, gaps and unplaces of globalisation.Sometimes the Chaussée de Mons reminds one of an outer-European place and sometimes it is a no man’s land. The abandoned churches, the closed stores, the empty beer cans, the feeling of decay, the ugliness, the abundance of traffic, the shipping canals and the dominant history of the coal mines and immigration form the coordinates of this stretch of land.
On Track. Off Track. Memorising the Mid-World. Walking the Fifth-Space
November 15 – December 13, 2008
A project by Orla Barry, Wim Cuyvers, Els Dietvorst, Nikolaus Gansterer, Johanna Kirsch
Production: Firefly vzw (Brussels); Partners: Jan van Eyck Academie (Maastricht), Kunsthalle Exnergasse (Vienna), argos (Brussels) & kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels)
Since 2006, a group of artists and an architect (Wim Cuyvers, Orla Barry, Els Dietvorst, Nikolaus Gansterer, Johanna Kirsch) has been working on the “The Stone Road”. The reflection on the place began as a research project along the Belgian motorway N6 (Chausée de Mons) which stretches from the south of Brussels to Mons in the direction of France. The “Chaussée” was once a route along which numerous pilgrims began their journey to Santiago de Compostela. Today, it winds its way through parts of Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia. The N6 becomes a global prototype of the motorway stretching its urban tentacles from one city to the next out into the landscape and its accelerated lines create inner spaces: transit zones filled with emptiness, gaps and unplaces of globalisation.Sometimes the Chaussée de Mons reminds one of an outer-European place and sometimes it is a no man’s land. The abandoned churches, the closed stores, the empty beer cans, the feeling of decay, the ugliness, the abundance of traffic, the shipping canals and the dominant history of the coal mines and immigration form the coordinates of this stretch of land.