Lucky © Hanne Van Assche
Regarde mon histoire/ Kijk naar mijn verhaal
Collective show
20 May - 17 July 2021
Hangar has created “Regarde mon histoire/ Kijk naar mijn verhaal”, a collective exhibition bringing together ten made in Belgium photographers.
« Le Hangar s’adapte cette fois (encore) au contexte perturbé que l’on traverse actuellement » Dernière Heure
“Regarde mon histoire/ Kijk naar mijn verhaal” invites the visitor to take a journey through a series of visual stories that are both human and intimate. Through their individual photographic story, the artists present their own experiences and those of others.
“Regarde mon histoire/ Kijk naar mijn verhaal” gravitates around the artist-photographer, Véronique Ellena, who studied in the photographic workshop at La Cambre. The artist has created a retrospective journey through ten series, illustrating the influence that the Belgian soul has had on her work. Hangar has brought together by Véronique Ellena’s side artists who, like her, have all had journeys in the medium of photography: Vincen Beeckman, Téo Becher & Solal Israel, Elise Corten, Anne De Gelas, France Dubois, Antoine Grenez, Katherine Longly and Hanne Van Assche.
« On ressort de là le regard rempli de poésie et de récits » Gael
(FR, 1966), lives and works in Paris (FR).
Vivre sa vie
Véronique Ellena presents, at Hangar, a retrospective journey through ten or so series whose tell underneath the story of her own life. In them, the artist turns her attention to the mystery of simple things while sublimating her models (her family and friends) in settings taken in the technical space.
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As soon as they come in, the exhibition plunges visitors into everyday life through a selection of different projects dating from 1992 to 2000: Les Supermarchés (1992-1993) Les recettes de cuisine (1993-1994), Les dimanches (1993-1994), Les grands moments de la vie (1997-1999), Le plus bel âge (1997-1999), Les cyclistes (1998) and Les habitants de Bruxelles (2000). This latter work, never shown before, is displayed to the public for the first time here at Hangar and is closely associated with the deep affection that Véronique Ellena has for Brussels and the people who live there. With her series on Brussels, the photographer pays homage to this Belgian “soul”.
These years spent focusing on portraits and encounters filled Véronique Ellena with rich emotions to the extent that it was time, for a moment, to put them aside. It was with Paysages (2005-2006) that she placed her gaze and her lens on “hold”. “My relationship with what is human has slowly led me towards a contemplative exploration of the world,” she explains.This examination of the link between the visible and the invisible and between reality and fiction first came to light in the series Ceux qui ont la foi (2003) and will progress to the Clairs-Obscurs (2017-2018). Produced fifteen years later, this series provided an opportunity for Véronique Ellena to refine her search by tackling the very inner essence of photography. After this series, it is in stained glass windows that the whole of Véronique Ellena’s work resonates the most. Her images destined for glass resemble all of the themes and searches that have punctuated her career.
Finally, in a quest for memories and nostalgia, Véronique Ellena reveals the intimacy of her own childhood home (Les Choses Mêmes, 2017) and that of her aunt (Zia Maggiore, 2017). After all, after every great adventure, it’s always important to come back home.
(BE, 1973), lives and works in Brussels (BE).
Claude et Lilly, 2015-2018
The Claude & Lilly project came into being in 2015 when Vincen Beeckman was handing out disposable cameras to the homeless at Central Station in Brussels. It was during these encounters that he met Claude and Lilly, two bashful lovers. He is Flemish and hails from Sint-Pieters-Leeuw; she comes from the Marolles district of Brussels. They met 22 years previously at the city’s Foire du Midi event. Vincen Beeckman asked to photograph them, with his camera, promising to given them the photo in exchange (which is how he works). After finding them, he was finally able to find them to five them the shot. This first photo was the beginning of a story of friendship and the beginning of a project that would last for three years until the death of Lilly, in June 2018.
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Claude & Lilly is a love story in close-ups, a series of portraits of two lovers whose affection is mutual. Vincen Beeckman wasn’t looking to create a report, choosing the form of the portrait, with no ambiguity, direct and frontal, to immortalise the union of this strong couple and the love that shines through in everything they do. These pictures of Claude and Lilly, kissing or hugging, tell the story both of what you don’t see (staying in the street, makeshift apartments, the hard knocks of life) and the strength of an indomitable love. Claude and Lilly are a modern Romeo and Juliet.
(FR/BE)
Les Fulguré.e.s, 2010 – 2015
A person is said to be “fulguré” (thunderstruck) when they are struck by lightning without being killed. On the other hand, the term “foudroyé” (struck by lightning) implies death, usually instantly.
In September 2017, a group of some fifteen people were struck by lightning, non-fatally, at a festival in Azerailles in the French department of Meurthe-et-Moselle. The survivors recall having to deal with a wide range of different consequences: temporary paralysis, loss of memory and problems sleeping. One of those struck explains that she was even given an amazing ability to carry out complex mathematical calculations in a very short space of time.
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Fascinated by these secondary effects, Téo Becher and Solal Israel decided to embark on a combined project. With the aid of a technical room for two, they set off to meet these lightning survivors. Here they present their portraits of these individuals, the place where they were struck by lightning and the symbolic personal effect that the event had for them. These images also have an experimental dimension: the use of photosensitive paper as the negative. The artists associate the vagaries of development with the almost metaphysical appeal of this rare phenomenon.
(BE, 1994), lives and works in Brussels (BE).
Warmer than the Sun
This photographic series is a continuous process documenting the mother of Elise Corten and the relationship she has with her. She tries to show us, through her photographic narrative, the dialogues, moments of intimacy and her great closeness with her subject. The artist uses her camera as a pretext for redefining the maternal link. By drawing on her daily rituals, she looks at her mother as she is – in other words a woman in her own right and not just a mother. The pictures show the desire that a mother has to reveal to her daughter, a photographer, the physical and emotional changes she is going through. The project is both personal and universal, exposing mother to daughter and daughter to mother and self to self. An intimate and sensual mother-daughter relationship is revealed through the succession of portraits and still life works.
(BE)
INTERMèDE (un visage de lignes)
“A face of lines… the self-portrait runs through the years, a reflection of time passing, a life that ploughs furrows. The story is written on the skin itself, while the self-portrait tells a story. This is an INTERMèDE (interlude), the disease, a crossing, a worrying time strangely extended. Drawings, texts and photographs focus on the body as it is transformed, femininity turned upside down. Breast cancer. In this moment of vulnerability, the desire is reborn to take a careful look at the small things in life, memories and everyday objects, breadcrumbs strewn through the apartment. Placing them, assembling them, photographing them, taking the time to convalesce and… continue”.
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It was when Anne De Gelas learnt of her breast cancer that the INTERMèDE (un visage de lignes) (Interlude. A face of lines) project sprang into life spontaneously. Like most of the series produced by the artist, the initial form of the series is a booklet, a logbook, consisting of silvered photographs and polaroïds, uncluttered drawings, texts, quotes and archives. The artist expresses the fears and questions through self-portraits and portraits of her son, who was an obvious person to incorporate into the project, the waiting and the recovery and carefully staged still lifes made of daily objects.
(BE)
Motherhood
“In a pas de deux that immerses us in expectation, hope and the unknown, a woman traces the movements of the ocean, alternately calm and frantic, before allowing herself to be carried away by the waves. Between incantation and prayer, she seems to speak the language of the water and follow the rhythm of the tides in a ceremony that speaks of myth and magic. The sea receives, carries, lifts, becomes the source of nourishment, both a protector and refuge at the same time, accompanying the long-distance journey of this woman, who is human and animal by turns. The waves punctuate the cycles that we guess to be ancestral. Like a rite of passage with mysterious practices, Motherhood speaks to us of a secret that goes back to the dawn of time.” – Marie Lemeland
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It was following the failure of several rounds of treatment for endometriosis and infertility that France Dubois decided to go and visit a girlfriend living on El Hierro, a black volcanic island tossed in the raging sea. In the face of the waves, she decided that if she couldn’t be a “mother” that she would become the “sea”. By diving into this immensity, France Dubois touches her eternal side. And through the absence of the horizon in her pictures, she immerses us with her.
(BE)
Saint Nazaire’s quarantine
Created in mid-April in Drôme (France), this project starts from a need for freedom and to reconnect with nature. Antoine Grenez and his girlfriend got together with friends living in a remote country house. Happy to have found each other again and intoxicated by being isolated, the girls disguise themselves and apply make-up using whatever they can find on the spot. This leads to a game of poses and attitudes.
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Familiar with the clubbing scene, Antoine Grenez and his friends like to transform themselves to go out. What could be more exciting than to take these transformations to excess, far from all eyes? Under the lens of Antoine Grenez, their escapade is then transformed into a huge party and, alone in the world, music at full blast, freer than ever, these friends share their feelings. These moments of collective trance and creativity become a real process that the photographer captures day after day. Somewhere between documentary and fashion shoot, between the real and the staged, his photos reflect the philosophy of life. After this week together, the gang decide to repeat the experience twice a year and to turn it into an artistic residence, far from everything.
(BE)
To tell my real intentions, I want to eat only haze like a hermit
“Source of pleasure or tool to control one’s body, means of connecting to others or solitary delight, uninhibited or a generator of anxiety, our relationship with food can take on different faces. It is intimately connected to our affects and acts as a subtle way of revealing of our social and family history.”
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Katherine Longly was overweight as a child. Between control and pleasure, her association with food is always tainted by these memories of childhood and shapes the image she has of herself. Beyond her own personal experience, she undertakes the task of questioning these issues in the context of Japanese society, where the pressure exerted on the body seems more intense than elsewhere. During a number of stays in Japan, the artist asked various people of different profiles and ages (including Yuki, R.P.K., Kenichi and Martijn) about their relationship with food and with their bodies. She recorded their stories and then asked all of these people to illustrate this relationship with food from the angle of their choice, using a disposable device, a tool that does not allow any control over the final picture and which brings an overwhelming sincerity to their testimonies. Combining photographs, documents, illustrations and archive images, the project is at the crossroads of art and anthropology.
(BE)
Удачный/Lucky
In the far east of Russia, is the small mining town called Udachny (Удачный), located in Yakutia, a remote area that is held in the freezing grip of winter for most of the year. This is one of the richest regions in the world in terms of natural resources: coal, gas, gold and diamonds. According to Siberian legend, God once upended a sack of treasures on this part of the country. Yakutia’s first uncut rough diamond was discovered in 1949, transforming the Soviet Union into a major producing country of diamonds.
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Since then, Udachny has become one of the biggest open-cut mines anywhere. Mine operations are supervised by the Russian company, Alrosa, which plays a major role in the international diamond industry and particularly in its exports to Antwerp. Today, the 12 000 inhabitants of this town are still connected to the mine. If though a stable job would appear to be the only reason to want to live in this humdrum town, the inhabitants find other reasons to stay, often associated with a strong link to nature and their fellow locals. Isolated from the rest of Russia, Udachny really feels like a world apart. The hospitality and optimism of the people who live there make the harsh climate more bearable. They are the ones who transform the landscape from a frozen and remote world into a vibrant and colourful community.
