The Ring of the Dove

New view on sexuality, thanks to Islamic literature

With The Ring of the Dove  the French-Moroccan artist Mehdi-Georges Lahlou has made work for the stage for the first time. Source of inspiration is the book of the same name by the Islamic poet and philosopher Ibn Hazm (994-1064) which deals with all the obstacles in a love relationship.  Lahlou confronts the medieval classic with the favourite themes of his own visual work : religious aesthetics, cultural and sexual identity and gender.

Lahlou's burlesque oeuvre loves distorting social codes : by shaking up our convictions he confronts us with what we think strange. He made The Ring of the Dove - a mix of choreography, video, text and music- together with an opera singer who will sing suras from the Koran. In this absurd universe these are funnier than ever.

Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, who has a Moroccan father and a Spanish mother, has been living in Brussels since 2007. Next to performances he works with photography, video, sculptures and installations. In his oeuvre Lahlou builds bridges between the cultural links and differences of his mixed origin by means of distortions and hybridisation. He explores gender issues and questions the importance of religions and traditions with an apparent nonchalance which sometimes borders on disrespect. Without losing intimacy the works explore the borders of faith, from the dream visions to the stereotypes.

Meanwhile Lahlou's work is also strongly interwoven with the surrealist history of the city of Brussels. The latter shows resemblances with his sharp feeling for the absurd, in which the Arab-Islamic and the Jewish-Christian cultures meet each other. Works of art made by Lahlou were to be seen a.o. at Transit Mechelen and in Flanders Field Museum, but just as well in Kiev and Berlin, even in TheArtSpace in Düsseldorf and the Performance Art Gallery in Chicago. In 2017 he claimed the Brussels Botanique for Behind the Garden, where he transformed the hall of the Museum into a quaint paradisiac garden.

Free buss:
* 21/11: Departure from 17h15 from Kortrijk (Parcours: Encyclopédie Pratique,... + The Ring of Dove)