Spectres by Sven Augustijnen

Extra: screening of “Spectres” followed by a talk, cinema KASK.
With Sven Augustijnen, Bart Verschaffel, Steven Jacobs, Johan Lagae and Stefaan Vervoort.

Sven Augustijnen made his name with his multilayered films and projects – both ambiguous and razor-sharp – in which he analyses cultural and historical places, events and people. He combines such media as film, home video, documentary, photo-series and newspaper supplements. Since 2005 he has been working in stages on his extended ‘Spectres’ project. This multipart work takes the measure of Europe’s colonial history and its aftermath: the ‘spectres’ that have still not been dealt with and which continue to affect our thoughts and actions. How does a nation cope with the suffering it has caused, with dubious political acts or moral bankruptcy? In a variety of disciplines – artistic and otherwise – Augustijnen makes the viewer think about the manipulation of written history and the hidden agendas of politicians, historians, journalists and documentary-makers.

The starting point for ‘Spectres’ is the murder of Patrice Lumumba a few months after his election victory in the Congo in 1960. For TRACK, Augustijnen sought in vain for the tree against which Lumumba was shot. It had probably been chopped down to make charcoal. In the Citadel Park, Augustijnen sets up an installation in which this charcoal – an indispensable source of income but also a symbolic remnant of the tree – is transported by bicycle, a ‘typically’ Congolese means of conveyance. Augustijnen deliberately located this installation near the ‘Moorken’. This small black sculpture on top of artificial rocks in the Citadel Park dates from 1888 and is a reminder of the time when the Congo was still Leopold II’s private pleasure garden. The ‘Moorken’ portrays the Congolese boy Sakala, whom the pioneer Lieven Van de Velde brought back to Belgium in 1884.

Practical
- free entrance
- Sunday, June 17th 2012
- 1:30 pm - 5 pm
- @ KASKcinema, Godshuizenlaan 4 – 9000 Gent.
- Contact: Lieze Eneman: lieze@track.be