One person

Our existence depends on your reaction, on the dialogue you establish with us, Brussels.

You can move around Brussels, breathe, express your emotions, and thus reveal yourself to us, alive and real.

This is Brussels.

What you see before you is the authentic version of this city called Brussels.

Brussels, here it is, within reach.

I assure you that this is Brussels.

Please believe me: this is Brussels.

Please trust me when I tell you that Brussels is right before your eyes.

Please believe that this is Brussels.

Brussels, you who are there, so close, tell them that it is really you.

Brussels, it is you, and no one else but you.

For heaven's sake, Brussels, just say a word to confirm your existence to the assembly.

Brussels, don't just stand there, silent, without reacting. Make a sign to show the world who you are.

2 in 1, the Visitation is a former convent, flanked by a church.

2 in 1, if there were only two of them, I thought.

2 in 1, it took me two days to get down there and two more to get back up. Then it was back to dismantling.

2 in 1, I slept in the car next to my work, in a rapeseed field near Troyes. I think they slept better than I did.

2 in 1, I got a €90 fine for driving through a built-up area at 67 kilometres per hour instead of 50.

2 in 1, if there was only one, I thought.

2 in 1,  I spent four days alone in the convent to install the show, because of the May Day bridge. A suspended lapse of time that turned out to be just that. From the street, you could hear the din of my tools sanding and drilling metal. The wandering souls of the visitandines thought no less of it.

2 in 1, I read an article by chance about microchimerism, which suggests that there can be two individuals walking around in the same body, no less.

2 in 1, that's what L'Oréal was advertising for their shampoo.

2 in 1, that's what they explain in church, when it comes to their promise.

2 in 1, create passive income from a given investment using artificial intelligence.

2 in 1, in short.

BCC BANCA DELLE TERRE VENETE
GRUPPO BCC ICCREA
 

Username : Farfalla
Password : Alfiere

2 days after the opening at Condotto48, I returned to Brussels. Lying on the floor in the departures area, I almost fell asleep and prolonged this Roman dream, probably never really initiated or completed. The exhibition was going to last 1 month, and it wasn't possible for me to recover the elements that made it up. I had no money to return to Rome, and no way of finding a place to stay again. So what had I left behind? Words exchanged with Valeria, printed on a sweatshirt and scarf; advertising fragments, brandished at arm's length in the suburbs, as if they were pendulums or compasses; finally, ceramic discs, inscribed with geographical markers. All this constituted a weighted net, projected onto Rome not without candor and provocation, the drawing of a map sketched over this territory of territories, or let's say an interrogation on the drawing of any map: how, why, for what purpose, with which north, which south, which center, above all? Brussels being the least magnetic capital, it must have been the best place to think about what to do. It seemed to me that the ceramic discs had to be placed in a specific location. Although the option of dispersion floated around for a while, it was discarded because it had already been the case: I knew this only too well. On the contrary, I had to condense at the most extreme rate. I thought of having them brought to the milestone, determined by Augustus, marking the zero point of the empire's roads. Then I discovered the Umbilicus Urbis Romae, a cavity dug by Romulus that had become a place of worship and, above all, an interface with the underground world. Opened three times a year on days considered risky, due to the possibility of evil spirits escaping, this pit was an obligatory passage for new citizens. They had to bring a handful of soil from their place of origin, and the first fruits of the year. It was a no-brainer. So I asked Valeria De Siero to sneak onto the forum one morning, accompanied by Francesca Pascarelli, to photograph this clandestine operation. And so it was.

A map of Rome's metro, or Brussels', or even Namur's (they must have a project like that in the pipeline after the elections). Cities know how to be sprawling. To get a grip on them, you throw a metro over them. It's thrown in where the city has been scattered, where it has spread out anarchically. The metro tries to restore order to all that. The subway is for touching a point on the map. You reach out to grab the pear at the end of the branch. The hand wants, the hand desires at all costs.

A map of the sky is drawn, perhaps even a playground for palmistry. It's said to include a whole network of roads we're likely to use. Type E411, exit 10. They say it's all perfectly geometrical, like a snowflake under a microscope. But as it happens, we don't have the benefit of hindsight. We don't have Google Maps in this antediluvian age. If there's a needleman or needlewoman in the room, we'd love to hear from you. Does destiny follow the lines of the hand, or the lines of the metro? Are we puppets manipulated by some invisible force, or do we have to lift everything at arm's length?

A road map unfolds, a sheet of calculations. These are places I've been, but it's not a self-portrait. It's an account of points in space where it's possible to be, temporarily, or for longer. An individual Y lives in/is from a place X. To what extent is individual Y defined by point X? If by any chance individual Y spends more time in place Z, does he become that place Z instead of the point X that was originally supposed to define his identity? And if so, when does this happen, and if not, why not? And if X and Z go together, who plays what and when?

When in doubt, go to Rome. All roads lead to Rome. But when you get there, you're in for a shock. The hands are spinning wildly. You can't find Rome. It's down there, up there, to the left, to the right, in front, behind, underneath, above, there if I'm there. She was there yesterday. Maybe she'll be back tomorrow. Obviously, she's not here. So what should we do with you?

Between us and Rome, there's a ring road, a freeway that goes all the way round. We have to cross this circle. This circle of fire. You have to go to Décathlon to see if they sell seven-spot boots to do that.

Photographs: Francesca Pascarelli

First sign
First prize
First come
First idea

Last cry
Last gesture
Last word
Last stand

First and last time

(Last rain)