Ria Pacquée
image: (c) M HKA, Verzameling Jan Meersman
Have you accepted that whatever seems to be is not, and that that which seems not to be is?, 1991
This project, together with Madame visiting the National Garden Festival hoping to see the Princess, was commissioned for 'Edge 90', an exhibition of innovative and international visual art which took place in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and also in Glasgow and London, in 1990. 'Edge 90 was the second in a series of bi-annual exhibitions organised by the Edge Biennale Trust, commissioning new projects by artists working in installation, performance, sculpture, broadcast media and video. This project took place in the City of London - around the city's major financial institutions - in November, 1990. In both projects Ria Pacquée was in disguise and infiltrated real-life situations and her experiences were discreetly documented by a photographer.
The Character she used, 'It', was making its first appearance. "(...) In London I wanted to make a project that was a kind of pilgrimage, not to a place such as Lourdes, but in a part of the city where people pass close by each other, in a hurry, shopping or working. I had been thinking about the character for the project for a long time. 'It' had to be a person who could just as easily be a man or a woman – in fact, a neutral person. He or she is an outsider with some strange obsessions. The character is a solitary person, in a struggle with a world he cannot comprehend. When you first see him standing with the placard, you think he belongs to a sect, but he doesn't. His placard is a message without a message - a pseudo philosophical text – as so many things are pseudo. Both characters ('Madame' and 'It') are a game with real and unreal. I try to break through reality, with the street, kitsch and people as decor. Both persons are me and the world together."