Balthasar

Director's statement:

My father – who is now 80 years old – once told me that on his 18th birthday his father took him on a day trip to Brussels. They themselves lived at the Belgian coast. From Central Station, they walked towards the Petit Sablon, the 19th-century park lined with a series of copper-green sculptures, each depicting one of the various 16th-century Brussels trades and crafts: the tanner, the glazier, the brine fishmonger, the cobbler, and so on. Once they were there, my grandfather is said to have told my father: “Right, now pick your profession”.

This ‘tour’ that my 18-year-old father took gave me the idea of making a film featuring a number of young Brussels residents currently making their own career choices. And, just like my grandfather, I wanted to use the Petit Sablon park as a place for doing some thinking, with the 48 bronze craftsmen looking over the shoulders of the young walkers and – who knows? – even whispering new thoughts and other ways of thinking to them.

I see the installation "The Models" as a sketch, an invitation to go for a walk around the Petit Sablon with your son, daughter, father, mother or friend and, together, to imagine 48 or more new silhouettes there.