Lazaretto Volontario (2022)

In july 2022, I participate in Lazaretto Volontario; a temporary artist collective experiment hosted in Sint-Truiden, Belgium. In a group of 8 artists, from different discplines and locations, we go through an intense 1-week workshop with the goal to create a scenography in the chapel of Z33 in Hasselt. We start from scratch, not knowing each other. Through workshops, discussions and communal meals we form an idea. The empty chapel for which we were creating a scenography is only used once each seven years when the city of Hasselt inaugrates its new patron/ patroness. We fabricate a story of a wizard-like person inhabitating this space in the years in between. This wizard has correspondance with friends, prays to a mysterious diety and likes to eat flan. We make artifacts grounding this fictional personage in reality: furniture, a shrine, a shower curtain, pots and pans, letters, a dairy and other paraphernalia. The chapel is open to the public for a week, during which the visitors could enter the space and explore the wizards living quarters. Participating artists: Clara De Vos, Marlies Van Der Straeten, Léonie Chauchat, Senneke Van De Wygaert Léa Murat, Lola Nogué, Ward Lauwers, niel de vries

Photo credit: Stefanie De Bakker