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".
"Symbolism is the bridge between nineteenth-century Romanticism and twentieth-century Modernism. Work on this film began in the summer of 2004 in Antwerp. There I filmed the Symbolist, personified by painter and fortune teller Mauro Pawlowski. In December that year I filmed body artist Danny Devos, as a personification of Modrnism, in the Paris flat of the curator and editor Guy Schranen. There is also additional footage from Berlin, Xiamen (China) and Vladivostok (Russia). The 16-year-old artist Raphaëlle Jamet completed the picture with her sparkle of young enthusiasm. My presence in the city of Berlin, during my one-year residency at DAAD, turned out to be decisive for this film."
− AMVK
Camera: AMVK
Editing: AMVK
Animation: AMVK
Soundtrack: AMVK, Mauro Pawlowski, Raphaëlle Jamet, Paul Mennes, Bum Collar
Actors: Danny Devos, Guy Schraenen, Louis Wuytack, Mauro Pawlowski, Raphaëlle Jamet
Produced by: DAAD-Berlin / Club Moral