Position

Schachteldenken

NU

Being-Booth

Being Selves

Ruhe

Pause

Hettekortvanhetteveel

› Land van Belofte

MEcarus

SALE!

Photography

(LAND OF PROMISS)
2005

Wall painting in public space, +/- 80 Meter long, 2 Meters high.
Commissioned by the council of Schiedam, the Netherlands

The wall I worked on was enclosing a building-ground formerly known as the ‘Land van Belofte’ (Land of Promise). This spot had been empty for decades and now a massive neo-classical housing and shopping-complex, carrying the same name, was to be built there.
This new Land of promise, thrust into the view of people living in the surrounding houses, had of course nothing to do with any promised land existing in the dreams and wishes of these people. I wanted to make a new view for the people living there: a landscape that was open for everyone. I focused on a more metaphysical understanding of the Land of promise. I painted a swarm of wings, flying towards the horizon of the land of promise.

After the wall painting was finished, I organised a happening where I invited people living in the surrounding houses to have their Polaroid-portrait taken with a pair of wings. In exchange for the Polaroid-portrait, I asked them to write down a statement about their personal ‘Land of Promise’. These handwritten texts where later painted on the horizon of the land of promise, expressing a collective land of promise that had emerged from the wishes and dreams of the people living there.