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".

MIGRATIE | MIGRATION

©Collection M HKA, Antwerp
Villa Wintermans, 2009
Video , 00:50:00
Video, fotomontage

At her own initiative, Inge Godelaine travelled to São Paulo, 18 years after conceptualist Jef Guys had created his architectural intervention. Her purpose was to interview the children, having since grown into adulthood, about their experience with the donated building and artwork donated on the site. The Villa's structure appears to have vanished... pilfered away, its parts repurposed in the houses of the slums, or burnt and/or rotted away. Geys presents Godelaine's film work as the fulcrum of an exhibition on the São Paulo project. With this act, the vanishing of an 'art work' morphs into something eternal, as though the artist wished too quickly to be rid of the transience,  the eventual disappearance of art and architecture.