Dear friends,
Some years ago I worked on sculptures consisting of scaled and stacked aluminium anti-tank crosses, also known as Czech hedgehogs. I used these because of my interest in borders and in how these tools for safety not only keep an aggressor out but also can lock oneself in. The sculptures were a sort of 'what if' situations. The widespread images from Ukraine of people welding the crosses and of streets blocked by the hedgehogs left me speechless. There is no 'what if' anymore. Back then, I thought I could use this form because, maybe naively, I considered it as something from the past.
Before the recent events, I could not have imagined arriving so close to reality coming from the realm of imagination, that I usually operate in.
In his book 'Hoogste tijd' (Last call) Dutch writer Harry Mulisch wrote a scene about the rehearsals of Shakespeare's The Tempest in which the director of the play explains to the actors how he wants the play to be. It should be like, he says, when you wet your finger to see if the iron is hot. When imagination almost touches reality it is like when the finger hits the hot iron and the spit in between makes a hissing sound. It is in that in-between where my work should be.
- Lucas Lenglet
