The exhibition project Middle Gate II – The Story of Dymphna is a collaboration between M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp) and the cultural centre de Werft in Geel. Middle Gate II is the follow up to the exhibition Middle Gate, curated by Jan Hoet in Geel in 2013. The exhibition concept is closely tied to the legend of the holy Dymphna, saint of the possessed, the mentally ill and patroness against epilepsy and insanity. The legend of Dymphna shares a strong connection to the identity of Geel, "the charitable city".

Ricardo Brey

(c)photo: Isabel Brey, Ghent
Today I almost remember, 2013
Object , 26 x 33 x 33 cm (box closed), 26 x 75 x 75 cm (box open)
paper, jute, gray emulsion, raffia, rope, clay, rubber, ceramic, metal, one notebook, textile, sand, gray emulsion

"What seems at first -as our past has trained us to approach it –to be an intensely personal experience in attempting to interpret, catalog or decipher the things within the boxes, gradually dissolves into the objects' unknowable material existence and their congealed historical content. By physically outlasting and opposing all subjective claims upon it, the object induces that which wishes to remain intact, holding onto the stubborn profusion of its own unique qualities. This layering and pulping of individual subjectivity asks for an extended sense of togetherness, between us and the object –over and above an ultimately lonely inter-subjective public sphere, and more towards an inter-objectified platform where subjects and objects, people and things, are reciprocally comprised, no longer reduced to pure interchangeableness and functionality.”

(McKee, J., Que le importa al Tigre una Raya Más: The Futility of Good Intentions, 2014, p.90.)

Music: Nusrat Ali Khan - Lament