Solstice, A Look Back.

Every saturday of the summer, a quiet place located between community gardens and an abandoned parking lot became a weekly hideout and get together for young artists from different regions of Belgium and abroad. In this twilight zone that we christened ‘The land of the confused’. Here we found camaraderie and dialogues between ourselves and with the residents from the social housing blocks next door. What should have been a periode of solitude framed by a previous lockdown and a yet to be announced second one, became a summer of joy. How I precisely got into this group and what my function was wasn’t always clear to me. Often I felt like a tourist or a prankster waiting to be found out. Yet there was no alibi to be formulated, and I was welcomed by friendly faces each week. During a time of isolation I could just be, be there and be confused... It is weird to look back at 2020. How some days felt endless, how many uncertainties there were, how fast the weeks went by... Months of sheltering blurred into a formless memory. Except that summer. That summer felt real. Although I’m happy that the year is over and that we can welcome a new one, it is pleasing to be part of this show filled with echoes and memories of that summer. To recollect the moments together, the laughs and the sorrows. Michiel Ceulers