Exciting and direct

Performance has a big place in your work. Why do you think it is important to express yourself through your body?

"When I first started, in my early twenties, performance felt like the first medium I could really express myself with. The most defined part of my skill set, so to speak. For example, it took a while before I could say anything through my sculptures, or at least that's how it felt. They remained a bit cold while my performances were very direct."

"I have had doubts over the years. For a while, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to do performances any longer. Then I was approached by an international committee of curators, including Eva Wittocx of M. They gave me the opportunity to develop a series of works. That allowed me to think more deeply about performance. Do I have to be in it myself, or can I give instructions to other people? Could it be an installation I am moving in? What can lighting contribute? In this way, the medium has regained its value for me. The message of performances is also less clear than with other art forms, because there is movement involved and all sorts of things happen. So people can give it more of their own meaning."

"Another strong point: there is a kind of tension around it. My performances are more structured now than twenty years ago, but things can always change along the way. When you are performing, you sometimes lose track of time: you think you have been working for an hour, but it has been three hours. Such things create tension. Not so much for me, because I am in the middle of it, but for the audience."

The reservoir and the massacre

‘The House at Kawinal', also on show at M, shows another aspect of your work.

"Yes, it consists of a room with a series of sculptures in it, one part in resin, one part in aluminium. The walls have a very specific green hue, and there is green and white lighting. As you walk through the room, I hope a story emerges for you. That doesn't necessarily have to be the story I have in my head."

"The starting point of the work is a photo I saw one day: a Mayan pyramid in the highlands of Guatemala, surrounded by water. A very absurd image, because pyramids are not built in water. At first I thought it was a collage. In 2018, I received a commission to create a new work, and that gave me the opportunity to look for that site. I did not know the context, nor did I know where the site was. It has become a very adventurous research trip. A slap in the face, too."

"Along with some friends, I found the place. The water turned out to be a reservoir for a hydroelectric power plant built by a European company in the 1980s. But we were not allowed to go near it. A kind of private army protected the whole installation. They were very aggressive. It felt as if they were going to shoot at us, just because we asked to see the pyramid."

"There was a village a little further on. We thought we might be able to get to the reservoir that way but the private army had guards there too. Afterwards, I discovered that it was precisely in that village, Río Negro, that the greatest massacre in the modern history of Guatemala took place in the early 1980s. And it was not part of the civil war, it was from a private firm. The reservoir is located on land that belonged to the Achi, a Mayan people. Some of them refused to move and so those unarmed civilians were attacked and killed. A trial of the case is currently under way, and crazy things are coming out of it. For example, they forced women to dance in the streets before executing them. They smashed children's heads against a tree..." 

"The morning after we had tried to visit the village, we were sitting at breakfast talking. The young woman who brought the food heard us and said: ‘Oh, you are looking for the pyramid? But it is near here!’ A complete coincidence. She explained to us how to get to the reservoir - via a terribly bad road, full of potholes."

"We have a dry and a wet season in Guatemala. In the wet season, it rains non-stop for months on end. Then the pyramid is inaccessible. In the dry season there is not a single drop of rain, the water level drops and the pyramid cames back into view. When we were there, there was only a few metres of water in the lake; the largest part of the pyramid was sticking out above it. After a while, we saw a canoe approaching, and it brought us close. Truly a wonderful moment. Before the reservoir, the pyramid had the best-preserved stucco in the Mayan world, but that is now almost gone. Every time the water rises, some of it disappears." 

"Many other Maya structures have also disappeared in the reservoir. A French archaeologist, Alain Breton, examined the area before the dam was built. In two years, he documented as much as he could. That work has become the reference text on the Maya architecture of everyday life, houses and similar. Most of the local members of his team were killed in the massacre. I later learned that the victims included relatives of my stepfather. Somehow, everything ended up being connected." 

"The Achi practised agriculture along the banks of the river that disappeared under the reservoir. After the massacre, the survivors were told that they would be given land elsewhere. But that never happened. Now they try to grow some crops around the lake, but the banks are much too steep. They earn almost nothing. A difficult, poverty-stricken life."

"'The House at Kawinal' is based on all those things I found out during my research trip. I am still trying to understand it myself - maybe I can add things later. But for me at least, it is an important work."