Igor Tschay (The Images)
2014
Stop motion of the image research
Full HD video, 16:9, 2:08
Between 2013 and 2014, work began between Knights Street, Avenue of the Golden Fleece and Drapers street in Brussels. A gaping hole appeared, which will house a huge shopping complex. I decided to explore the history of the site before the work was completed, imposing on myself to use only the internet and to archive only the images.
Little by little I am accumulating a complex iconography, where images of art installations, promotional campaigns, arson, car accidents or squat evictions can be found side by side. But one event in particular caught my attention.
Igor Tschay (Icon)
2015
Concrete, gold leaf and laser print transfer
25 x 22 cm
In 1996, several abandoned buildings on the site were purchased by a major English property group. No work was undertaken and in 2000 three of these buildings were taken over by squatters, mostly artists or students, to live and work there.
All attempts at dialogue by the occupants and eviction by the owners have failed. This unstable situation lasted one year, when on 30 July 2001 an arson attack led to the death of one of the inhabitants (Igor Tschay) and put an end to the occupation of the buildings, which were destroyed in 2004.
Death in the face
2014
Illegal poster collage in the Avenue of the Golden Fleece
Laser printing and spray paint
This tragic news item was the last information I found on the internet, with only one picture accompanying it, in an article written a few years later in memory of Igor Tschay. This photograph was taken during a performance by the Ukrainian poet, in the squat "L'îlot Soleil".
This single image, in the midst of a considerable sum of archives as diversified as they were anecdotal, would in itself lead me to a series of interventions and gestures in close connection with the present and past reality of the place it concerned.
Death in the face
2014
Illegal poster collage in Knights street and Drapers street
Laser printing and spray paint