Location: Gemeenteraadszaal

The visual work of Peter Buggenhout (1963, Dendermonde) raises echoes of ruins. It is unclear whether we see waste and residues or a monumental simulation of this. Since 2000, Peter Buggenhout has worked on a series of dust sculptures, called The Blind Leading the Blind. The compositions, made from abject materials and covered in household dust, gradually grow internally and comment on the general rudderlessness of human existence. Just like the blind people in the painting The Parable of the Blind (Pieter Breughel the Elder), which the title of the series refers to, nobody really has an insight into his or her past or place, and knows next to nothing about the future that awaits him or her. Inspired by the unique architecture of the Gemeenteraadszaal, the substantive charge of this location and the exceptional narrative character of the maritime scene depicted on the back wall of the space, the artist conceived a project that integrated the space in a unique way. A structure that redefines the borderline between internal and external, on several levels.