This work stems from my continued interest in bricolage – as aesthetics, as process, as socio-cultural marker. It consists of materials I dug up in the dumpster of the construction/demolition company my studio is sharing the building with. Grey tiles, stacked upon each other, show both their front face (with added paint) as well as their back side, with whitish adhesive still sticking to it. The tiles are hold in place by a frame of shards and scraps of different woods.
“Pour les makers” is the claim of “Brico”, a Belgian chain of hardware stores. Both name and claim are connecting to and identifying with the attitude of DYI (do it yourself). They are acknowledging and somewhat celebrating that this is not the place of professional craftsmanship, of perfection, of skillful masters. This is for the “makers” doing “stuff” rather than conceiving and building elaborate constructions. It is like a tribute in advance, a tribute to the improvised it-does-its-job-dilettantism: no matter what the results might be, we honor that you try. It is more about the making than the made.
Not least, with its chunks of French and Dutch, the claim is also representing the often complicated and confusing reality of Belgium as composite of two cultures somehow patched together. Bricolage might just be the way to deal with this – an everyday practice of improvisation. “Pour les makers” then is more than a marketing slogan of a hardware store – it is the claim of Belgium itself.
