Night Shift, Decoratelier, Brussels, 2022
The chalk work, taking up a level of the former sugar refinery in Molenbeek, adds a thin,
temporary layer of powder to the floor, obliquely tracing heat diagrams––part of the sugar
extraction process––that can be followed by moving through the space. Referencing
looping, digressive literary structures, known as ring composition, the work is titled after
W.G. Sebalds’ novel The Rings of Staturn, presented as an account of a walk through
the English countryside. Slipping in and out of local and universal contexts, the narrators
memories of historical events connect to the path of his walk, often siting cycles of
corruption and decay including the violent history of sugar extraction’s connection to art.
“At times it seems to me, said de Jong..” a dutch character in Sebald’s novel, “...as if all
works of art were coated with a sugar glaze or indeed made completely of sugar.”
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Part of Night Shift, by Gouvernement at Decoratelier.
Photography (images 7, 8) by Blaise Burezi