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".

Vaast Colson

©Vaast Colson
Kalpetran, 2003
Photography , 97 x 69 cm
lambda colorprint, aluminium

Kalpetran is the title of this autobiographical work: a photograph of the artist donning folkloric alpine attire while searching for a particular stone that he was carrying around as a child one day during a holiday with his parents in the Swiss Grächen. Colson had been forced to leave this stone behind, and this performance shows him trying to retrieve this talismanic trace of a long-lost innocence – the philosopher’s stone which may well have put him on his way towards becoming an artist.