TO RESERVE YOUR PARTICIPATION:
Guilty Landscapes is an individual video installation and takes 10 minutes. Please make your reservation
> by phone +32 (0) 56 23 98 55 (mon > fri 10:00-12:30 & 13:30-18:00, except tuesday and thursday morning)
> ONLINE, CLICK HERE and fill out the form. We'll confirm your reservation soon.

What if the victims from the news were to look you straight in the eye ?

Every night the news confronts you with natural disasters, wars and degrading working-conditions. By the continuous availability of news on our laptops, televisions and smartphones we continuously witness complex situations at the other end of the world. Every day we can feel uneasy by the confrontation with alleged poverty and despair. But is the news camera neutral ? Whether they want it or not, the filmed are framed as victims. Even before he realises it, the socially overconscious spectator is swept away in a whirlpool of guilt and shame.

With the large-scale video installation Guilty Landscapes, the Dutch artist Dries Verhoeven brings the reality of uncomfortable news images dangerously close. He poses the question whether a personal connection between viewer and viewed is possible. What if the news looks back at its witnesses ; if the protagonists of the news look us straight in the eye ? Through livestreaming Dries Verhoeven organises a one-to-one meeting of maximally ten minutes with a 'victim' at the other end of the world. There are four versions of Guilty Landscapes. Which meeting Verhoeven arranges for NEXT and what happens when you are face to face with the other person we cannot yet give away...

The Dutch theatre maker and visual artist Dries Verhoeven is not easily frightened. He makes installations , performances and happenings in museums, on location and in the public space of a city. On the border between performance and installation, he brings the relations between spectators, performers, everyday reality and art in focus. The spectator is directly involved in the work or gets the opportunity to steer his own experience. At NEXT 2015 he placed a taboo-breaking tableau vivant in the street every day with Ceci n'est pas Kortrijk (a transgender! Black Peter with handcuffs! a kinky dwarf!) which led to a lot of heated but interesting conversations. For Verhoeven it is not about provocation but about activating the thinking of the spectator, an incentive to critical reflection.

RESERVATIONS FOR GUILTY LANDSCAPES ONLY VIA TEL +32 (0) 56 23 98 55
(mon > fri, except Tuesday morning and Thursday morning)