Cecile Broekaert
Kunstenfestival Watou (BE), 2024
“During my residency in Watou I decided to look for a powerful narrative. I wanted to find just one strong story or visual sentence.
That would be enough.
I ended up getting much more than I expected. The longer I was in Watou, the more stories I got to hear from a very diverse group of people. Stories about their daily view on their village, about how they had ended up there, what attracts and repels them, who they knew, about their first love ...
But they also expressed their love and/or discomfort towards the artists and artworks that descend on their beloved (or not so beloved) village, every year.
It became a patchwork of the inhabitants of a village, that is influenced by the French border, by the merger with Poperinge and the influx of visitors of the arts festival. All this leaves an impression. This coming together of people, images and feelings was mirrored in the Patchwwwork residence itself: a group of artists of various backgrounds, with different customs and habits, who also exchanged impressions about the arts festival, the people, Watou and each other.”
I documented all stories and impressions during my stay in Watou and distilled from them an installation in which the different elements come together to form a whole.
Sounddesign by Ewoud Vermote