Le journal d'un usager de l'espace

Le journal d’un usager de l’espaceMira SandersContact: Venezuelalaan 11B-1000 Brussels, BelgiumT + 32 2 502 89 79 M +32 498 85 41 17E [email protected] http://users.skynet.be/mimirage

Trying to define your work in words is maybe the most difficult to do. Although trying to define what you see, is maybe worse. le journal d’un usager de l’espace is a sentence I kept in my mind when I was reading the book Espèce d’Espace from the french author George Perec. Perec’s book handles on our perception of our everyday life, and this from our microcosm to our macrocosm universe. Facing our culture, questioning our culture-conditioning, our way of percep-tion and realize maybe you are victim of your own culture-conditioning.For an usager de l’espace is for sure living in a house, a building, a neigbourhood, a city, a country, ... I am a user of the space and touch the limits of it. Through the walk, the trip, the going through, the user has to face different subjects. Are we more living in our speed of life instead of our house? What does mean our architecture today? People are build-ing up their own theatre, their own world. May I define my neigbourhood as a kind of decor? Organise our life as we organise our garden?We believe in images, because they taught us to believe in. But is an image an evidence for believing or is it just some-thing we like or not like to see? The image bank is growing every day, more than 24 images/sec. And the artist, he or she is helping to produce just more of them...

Mira Sanders, 2005

Wissant, 2001 video still, M.S.

MIRA SANDERS Journal pour un usager de l’espace (Journal for a user of space) is the generic title used by Mira Sanders for the way she approaches art. Its multiple aspects correspond to the diversity of the activity covered. Thus, the term Journal refers to the log or the diary but also to the newspaper as a distribution channel for information, be it political, cultural or other, either general or rather based on common facts. The term user relates both to the artist herself and to us, the specta-tors- possible users. Through Mira Sanders’ way of using space, it oscillates permanently from private to public space, covering both the geographical and physical space, mental and even sentimental space. In a way, one could describe Mira Sanders as a discreet yet efficient and critical explorer of the world that surrounds her, who attempts to re-look, re-see, re-discover and re-hear not only things but also beings, as well as the structures by which they are linked and in which they function or are supposed to function. She does so starting from a personal point of view, all while trying to integrate that of the object or the subject observed and analyzed, for the duration of a work or a research.This partially explains the crucial time Mira Sanders devotes to the elaboration of a project. Indeed, at each time this will be preceded by reading, research, notes, sketches, encounters and dialogues, even if the final result – which will be shown in the context of an exhibition or an intervention – often seems sober and simple. This is exactly where the possible ambiguity lies, yet at the same time the tranquil force of an approach often more complex than it seems, while remaining accessible and readable. Mira Sanders favors the clear line in her drawings and sketches, and sober expressions in writing. She also uses the spontaneity of the video camera or sound recorder, and is fond of direct communication through posters or newspaper. This doesn’t prevent her, however, from elaborating more complex installations, or fromengaging in larger projects Yet at every turn, Mira Sanders privileges human contact and dialogue, either during the elaboration of the work, or during its conception and/or its distribution, as she is one of those artists for whom the artistic approach wouldn’t have any sense if it weren’t permanently linked with the world that surrounds her. MPGSeptember 2007Translated from french by Kaatje Cusse

BORDS DE ROUTE (2011)

presentation/concept

L’artiste belge Mira Sanders est dans l’Avesnois entre mai et septembre, inaugurant par sa présence le tout nouveau programme de résidences d’artistes de cent lieux d’art2.Lors de venues régulières qui se poursuivent cet été, l’artiste s’intéresse aux bords de routes et de chemins, ces intervalles mal définis et ignorés de chacun, et en particulier aux objets, plantes, morceaux de nature qui les composent. Loin d’un regard posé sur l’exceptionnel que peuvent recenser les guides touristiques, Mira Sanders part à la recherche d’espaces anecdotiques, parfois oubliés, espaces à la limite, à la frontière, situés dans l’« inframince » de Marcel Duchamp, entre le visible et l’invisible. Ces recherches aboutiront à la conception de plusieurs cartes mentales du territoire, avec le des-sin comme médium privilégié, qui feront l’objet d’une exposition monographique à partir d’octobre dans le cadre de Watch this Space #6, biennale de la jeune création du réseau 50°nord.

Mira Sanders définit l’ensemble de son travail comme le « Journal d’un usager de l’espace », d’après une expression empruntée à l’écrivain français Georges Pérec. Cette « exploratrice discrète » pratique une expérience sensible des lieux qu’elle découvre ou explore et envisage chacun de ses projets comme une nouvelle page de son carnet de bord. À partir de fragments récoltés ici et là et d’observations sensitives, elle collecte de nombreux objets, sensations, souvenirs, sons, aussi bien lors de ses pérégrinations solitaires qu’à l’occasion de dialogues et d’échanges avec les habitants d’un lieu, d’une ville, d’un territoire.Chaque projet est précédé d’une longue phase de préparation, enrichie de lectures, recherches, notes, croquis et dia-logues. Cette démarche générique donne lieu par la suite à une restitution sous forme d’œuvres aux supports variés, allant du dessin à la vidéo, en passant par la photographie, l’installation ou l’édition de journaux et affiches.

Raphaëlle Baumehttp://www.centlieuxdartdeux.org/page1/page6/page6.html

Bords de route12 drawings with ink

Produced by Cent Lieux d’Art 2Co-produced by Watch this space Biennial 2011

15.10.2011 - 08.01.2012Bords de routeVitrine Paulin, Solre-le-Château (FR)

Page suivante: reproductions des cartes-dessins Berlaimont, Maroilles, Sars Poteries et Liessies.

LUDUS PRO PATRIA (2011)

Solo exhibition 09.04. - 29.05.2011Lieux Communs, Namur

Ludus pro Patria est le titre du projet vidéo présenté par Mira Sanders, du 9 avril au 29 mai, dans les vitrines de la gare de Namur réservées à l’asbl Lieux communs. Cette maxime est au fronton d’un édifice connu sur place, le Stade des jeux, auquel s’adosse le Théâtre en plein air, formant sur les hauteurs, au-delà du domaine fortifié, un ensemble ex-ceptionnel, dévolu aux loisirs, qui a marqué un tournant dans l’histoire du développement urbain.

Bien connu donc, parce qu’on sait où il se trouve, et parce que son concepteur a été mis en lumière en 2010, pour le centenaire de l’inauguration. L’architecte Georges Hobé (1854-1936) a ainsi doté la ville d’une construction à la sym-bolique forte, fonction- nelle, qui a littéralement recréé le paysage, et dont le vocabulaire architectonique, ni Art nou-veau ni Art déco, est unique en son genre. Mais aujourd’hui la décrépitude frappe les visiteurs; la ruine menace même. On remarque cependant qu’il émane de cette construction et des relations qu’elle entretient alentour quelque chose de rare, procédant paradoxalement d’un puis- sant genius loci et d’une déconcertante étrangeté.

Mira Sanders a “découvert” l’endroit il y a quelques années, y trouvant écho à certains de ses propres travaux, comme La Girafe (2004), d’après un château d’eau en béton situé à Caen, ou L’Atelier, présenté au Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles (Jeune Peinture 2007). A Namur, les parties construites en gradins ne sont pas sans liens avec Le Théâtre de la Mémoire de Giulio Camillo, auquel elle se réfère parfois. Cela dit, si l’endroit est le plus souvent représenté désert dans les photographies patrimoniales, il s’y est passé bien d’autres choses que les acti- vités en “chapeaux melons et canotiers” aujourd’hui fétichisées. Le Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles y a organisé du cinéma, les sports mécaniques y ont pros-péré (gymkhanas, tuning motor shows, moto-cross, ...), des stars comme Jacques Dutronc ou Jean-Paul II y ont eu des podiums, le Tour de France y est passé et de très nombreux cirques s’y sont arrêtés; l’activité la plus récurrente y est le festival Verdur’Rock. Tout cela ne renvoie pas qu’à la Belle Epoque, qui se terminait d’ailleurs vers 1910. Dans cette perspective éclatée, la maxime “Ludus pro Patria” évoque- rait plutôt, transposée, Rock My Religion de Dan Graham, et en particulier le texte Theater, Cinema, Power, qui balaie un champ allant du Teatro Olimpico de Vicenza aux dérives du spectacle totalitaire, en passant par Erwin Piscator et le Cineac de Duikers, Benjamin et Foucault en toile de fond.La proposition tripartite de Mira Sanders, déterminée par l’em- placement de moniteurs dans chacune des trois

vitrines de la gare, se situe sans nostalgie dans cette oscillation entre jeux et pouvoirs. Elle envisage sa relation person-nelle, intime, à cette architecture, en explorant patiemment ses subtilités. Sur place, on ne sait trop que dire de ce qu’a fait Hobé, parce qu’on n’es- saie pas de le penser. Et cela tient au fait que cette construction, au fond, ne s’adressait pas aux Namurois. L’architecte avait une autre ambition, en partie incomprise, qui donne sa portée à la proposition de Mira Sanders, associant des vues panoramiques en un regard démultiplié, détaché mais révélateur. En variant les angles, elle souligne qu’à chaque point de vue correspond une position, un balayage, et une osmose entre sol et air.

Ses cadrages juxtaposés induisent un hors-champ explicite, qui dé- crypte la construction, et un contre-champ impli-cite, où s’éploie une poétique des parages. Il y a l’axe majeur, oui, du Théâtre et du Stade, mais il y a surtout symbiose à 360°, avec toutes les composantes paysagères ; qui passionnaient Georges Hobé, et qui passionnent Mira Sanders par le truchement du “pittoresque”. C’est dans la prise en compte attentive de cette complexité que s’origine sa lecture à elle, très au-delà des ap- parences. Si le potentiel de l’endroit saute aux yeux, il exerce aussi tel quel une fascination, car il est déjà spectacle pour les promeneurs solitaires. Mira Sanders a construit sa vision des lieux sur l’idée d’une “promenade architecturale” travaillée par le concept du “remontage”, emprunté à Georges Didi-Huberman. Or il se trouve que le dispositif de Hobé, déjà, était une sorte de “remontage” de l’équation site-architecture-spectacle telle qu’on l’entendait à l’époque...

Raymond BalauIn l’art même, Trimestriel, #50, Mars – Mai 2011, 50, p. 35

INVISIBLE LINES (2010)

Solo exhibition 12.03. - 15.05.2010FDC Satellite gallery, Brussels

The work of Mira Sanders combines the art of drawing with that of video, photography, and journals. Her drawings show a continuous tension between the endless horizon, foot holes in liberty and those which, on the other hand, order and frame spaces. This tension refers to politics (spaces in which we live) as well as the pure signification of drawing – the white sheet of paper as a space of inscription.

Silent Letter is divided into six monitors. Five of them present a video sequence in which lines of sharing, contours, observation, positioning in the landscape, urban space, and the artist studio, are introduced. Each video, inscribed with a date, delivers the story of a foreign observer. This story is subtitled on a black screen. The colour black becomes, for a moment, a sequence of still and/or moving images, before reappearing as a story again. On the 6th monitor a series of quotations are running across the screen, raising the question of line and boundary.

In the Silent Letter of the 19th January 2009, kites are drawing lines above a coastal landscape. The sky turns into a white sheet on which the artist (the kite) can draw.

“Through the line and the in-depth way of looking, I reveal. Permeated by the eyes, each detail and trace, each scar is perceptible. I draw situations, people, places... over there and here. I wander around this line.”(...)

“There are guards at certain points on the line. They’re armed. They look serious. No question of making fun, or light. They don’t like you observing. Or in any event, that’s the impression you get. The line is drawn on my white sheet of paper. It’s futile and clumsy. Will anyone be able to read what it means or describes?”(...)

“The eye focused on the city. Today it will be this particular street, these particular people, this particular building, tomorrow something else. Or... should I go back and start all over again?”

In the letter of the 27th April 2008, the observer arrives for the first time in a town. He notices that sometimes the inhabitants move and act according to invisible lines: “They put borders wherever they want. To preserve silence and noise ordered. (...) But when this order is invisible they can’t imagine the line.”

The reference and the drawing, this time directly on the sheet of paper in the piece Dialogue de Sourds, raise questions and answers of another epistolary kind. A dialogue that started in 2005 between the artist and Marie-Pascale Gildemyn, art critic and art historian. Through open letters, the dialogue breaks the silence or fill it. Mira Sanders sends a drawing to which the recipient reacts. The dialogue’s visual snatches are memos, sketches “ripped out” from a drawing book and framed. Each exhibition marks a new choice among some twenty drawings realized by now.

Paradis artificiel. Paradis perdu. Paradou introduces a vignette (or the basic drawing of a screen) which surrounds a palm tree. The title has been written in pencil below the vignette and acts like a stand. It suggests tracks of interpretation to the recipient. Her answers are not known from us. We can suggest they lead to the creation of another drawing and so forth. Thus, the narrative line is divided: the spectator must complete it or not.

The series of photographs Scale 1: 2500 (studio #1) display up-close views of work tables and street details which seem to have been noticed by an external observer. Scale 1: 2500 (studio #1) (2009) shows a cutting board on which the leftovers of an activity create an urban landscape and his monuments. The cutter’s traces on the board, similar to scars, evoke a cartography of visible and invisible lines, that we can no longer read, pointing towards the possibility of devia-tion. The implicit relation with the workshop practice in Scale 1: 2500 (studio #1) becomes explicit in the series Borders (2009). The word Border in English, comes from the hand-craft creation practiced in some leisure1 centers. On A0 white sheets, object outlines (scissors, screwdriver, points...) are pushed back and organized on the edge of the sheet in order to construct a frame. The central space of the sheet, left empty, is transformed into a projection space, a place for possible inscriptions.

Eva Gonzàlez-Sancho & Frédéric Oyharçabal

Appendix:Deviation: departure from a standard or norm, from Moral (the guardians), and from Reason. To scent: to perceive or recognize by or as if by the sense of smell. To smell with insistance like a dog do. To sense, to perceive.

1. Leisure or hobby refers to the activity one does during the time one has outside his usual occupations and the restraints produced by them. It is also called free time. This free time is usual spend in non economically productive activities which are often cultural or playfull: DIY activity, garden-ing, sports...

THE JOURNEY (2009)

“We put the world before you by means of the bioscope”The Charles Urban Trading company, 1903


Mira Sanders’ video and accompanying installation takes as its point of departure the history and evolution of tourism, the question of increased mobility and travel that was democratised at the second hald of the twentieth century, and how this history is represented as image. Beginning with an old post card of a landscape observation tower in Heist-op-den-berg, Sanders proceeds to examine a whole of host of images of tourist monuments and landmarks, translating them into drawings to examine their meaning as symbols, their construction and function. The project is based on an investigation of the language of tourism and how that has evolved since the explosion of the phenomenon in the last 50 years. Sanders’ work revolves around questions of representation and this particular project is a comparative research into the various genres that constitute the tourist landscape.

Apart from monuments, Sanders also explores dioramas, panoramas, and landscapes, with a particular focus on differ-ing perspectives, how these images are framed and which representational tools are used to convey a certain view thus aiming to raise awareness about how these images are constructed. Using archival material, books, paintings and photo-graphs as references Sanders select and transcribes certain images into drawings in order to urge closer contemplation of their structure. The project is ultimately a kind of mapping the history of tourist representation and the ‘architectures of tourism’, while at the same time exploring the role of photography in the genre’s evolution, and of painting before that. How has this kind of representation changed over the years? What kind of differences exist within the genre itself? How does perspective change the view we have an image? What is the difference between the expectation, the representation and the reality of the tourist experience? When does a monument or landscape become worthy of representation? These are some of the questions the project aims to raise.

Katerina Gregos, 2009 (Hidden in Remembrance is the the Silent Memory of our Future, catalogue CONTOUR 2009, pp. 148, A-Prior, Mechelen, Belgium)

The JourneySingle channel video, 5’, installation with book

Co-produced by Contour Mechelen vzw, BelgiumWith the support of the Flemish Community

15.08. - 18.10.2009Contour 2009 - 4TH BIENNAL OF MOVING IMAGE Hidden In Remembrance Is The Silent Memory Of Our FutureCurator Katerina GregosContour Mechelen, Belgium

with Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Herman Asselberghs, Yael Bartana, Ulla von Brandenburg, Andreas Bunte, Lene Berg, Michaël Borremans, Matthew Buckingham, Chto Delat, Maryam Jafri, David Maljkovic, Vincent Meessen Nathaniel Mellors, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Julian Rosefeldt, Mira Sanders, Yorgos Sapountzis, T.J. Wilcox

Sightseeing, 2009

Siections, 2009

ANE(C)DOTE (2009)


For this project Mira Sanders explores the city of Charleroi and this through different courses, walks and meetings with the citizens. During those meetings and explorations, Mira Sanders, films, listens, records, draws... takes note. from this collection of information, she develops “paintings”, mnemonic drawings, that are scaled and published in the window of Incise. Entitled as Ane(c)dote, this exhibition will develop itself in time. The drawings will regularly be replaced.

Nourished by the sensitive experience of the places, personal lectures (and sometimes lonely), Mira Sanders recom-poses the territory. The result is a series of new maps of the city, able to disturb our memory or our imagination, to raise fled or vanished sides, so to re-visit or re-invent this well or unknown city.

Fragments of the city or evidences of it, the artist offers the possibility to the “spectator/traveler” to walk in an infinite landscape, to rest, to lose himself, to finally find back himself, with a fresh glance. Gliding our eyes in the footsteps of Mira Sanders, is taking the risk to question our own mechanisms of perception.

Marie-Noëlle Dailly - Benoît Dusart, 2009Excerpts of the pressrelease of ANE(C)DOTE . Translated from french.

photo Marie-Noëlle Dailly

Ane(c)doteprinted matter9 drawings scaled and printed on canvas240 x 150 cm Production with the support of the Flemish community

06.04.2009 - 30.06.2009Solo exhibition at INCISE espace d’exposition, Charleroi, Belgium

EEN HISTORISCH MAAL (2009)


Residency at FLACC, Workplace for artists in Genk, Belgium (2008 - 2009)

For her workplace project Mira Sanders (b.1973; Uccle, Brussels) in turn invited two artists to set up a long-term collaboration. Her artistic practice generally departs from an astute observation of daily life. In the first instance, the workplace creates a motive for dialogue, for production and reflection. Her project is being developed both inside and outside the spaces of FLACC.

Mira’s first invitee is the architect and artist Annelies De Smet. Their collaboration began with a bicycle trip from Brus-sels to FLACC, under the project title: WASTELAND. The trajectory leads us through the veritable disused terrain and associated non-built and neglected areas of public space, to the meaning and the representation of that idea. The publication of a newspaper forms the first interim account of their combined journey: part real, part imaginary images and impressions of the excursion are identified, in conformance with a proportional scale that also records the element of time.

The second collaboration leads us to an event organised with the artist Nele Dekoninck, known for her ceramic works. She and Mira Sanders share a fondness for the authentic art of cooking. In the kiln studio at FLACC, Dekoninck is at this moment developing her own Middle Ages inspired tableware that will be set-out at two historic meal occasions.

een historisch maalprinted matter

02 - 03.05.2009A receipt booklet published on the occasion of the historical meal organised by Nele Dekoninck and Mira Sanders at the FLACC, Genk, Belgium. Drawings by Mira Sanders.210 x 97mm, 12p, Dutch edition500 ex.

WASTELAND (2008)


Residency at FLACC, Workplace for artists in Genk, Belgium (2008 - 2009)

For her workplace project Mira Sanders (b.1973; Uccle, Brussels) in turn invited two artists to set up a long-term collaboration. Her artistic practice generally departs from an astute observation of daily life. In the first instance, the workplace creates a motive for dialogue, for production and reflection. Her project is being developed both inside and outside the spaces of FLACC.

Mira’s first invitee is the architect and artist Annelies De Smet. Their collaboration began with a bicycle trip from Brus-sels to FLACC, under the project title: WASTELAND. The trajectory leads us through the veritable disused terrain and associated non-built and neglected areas of public space, to the meaning and the representation of that idea. The publication of a newspaper forms the first interim account of their combined journey: part real, part imaginary images and impressions of the excursion are identified, in conformance with a proportional scale that also records the element of time.

The second collaboration leads us to an event organised with the artist Nele Dekoninck, known for her ceramic works. She and Mira Sanders share a fondness for the authentic art of cooking. In the kiln studio at FLACC, Dekoninck is at this moment developing her own Middle Ages inspired tableware that will be set-out at two historic meal occasions.

wastelandprinted matter

2008Publication made of transcriptions of the bicycle trip we made from Brussels to Genk, 6. - 7.08.2009A project by Annelies De Smet and Mira Sanders. With the support of the FLACC.Newspaper, 230 x 170mm, 12p, English edition500 ex.

SHADOWS (OF CALIFORNIA) (2008)


The journal YANG invited me to participate with a series of drawings for their 4th issue of 2008. I have chosen the serie Shadows (of California), 2008. A serie a drew during my residency period in September 2008 in Los Angeles and San Francisco. A region where the shadows of the cinema are living and where you can almost imagine a camera on a roof of a building.

About Yang

The Flemish journal yang is considered to be one of the most important literary and cultural journals of the Low Countries. Four times a year, yang publishes contemporary poetry, prose and literary criticism of both Dutch-speak-ing authors and foreign authors in Dutch translation. More recently, yang has also opened a platform for articles in which urgent socio-political matters are debated.

Yang is a journal, but also a battle scene. In a time in which anti-intellectualism reigns supreme and almost no liter-ary magazine has the courage to appeal to a more specific ideology, yang resists the idea that the so-called ‘end of metanarratives’ has obliterated all ideology. This analysis has been exposed as the expression of a neo-liberal political ideology that has been allowed to leave its mark upon literature for too long. It is against this cynical ideology that yang tries to define itself aesthetically as well as ethically.

Shadows (of California)printed matter

2008Shadows (of California), 15 drawings published in the Yang journal, n° 4, December 2008240 x 170mm English edition

FALSE STEREOSCOPY (2008)


Curator Steven Op de Beeck invited a group of artist who have affinities with printed matter for a residency of 2 weeks at the graphic art centre Frans Masereel in Kasterlee (Belgium). On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the centre, we produced with the artist a book with new graphic work. Some were collaborating with each other, other worked out a site-specific work or produced a new total autonomous work.

The graphic work False stereoscopy finds its references in site-specific details around and in the centre of Frans Masereel. It started with the cups of coffee when we were taking breakfast in the morning. I’m right-handed and when I drunk my coffee, I didn’t see the Flemish lion printed on the cup. My artist colleague next to me was left-handed, and instead of me, he was constantly confronted with the Flemish lion when he was drinking his coffee. I developed a whole serie of registrations from the site itself which aren’t real stereoscopies, but which make a wink to the photographic tech-nique*.

*stereoscopy= three-dimensional vision produced by the fusion of two slightly different views of a scene on each retina http://www.wordreference.com/definition/stereoscopy

false stereoscopyprinted matter

February 2008Book edition on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Frans Masereel Centre, Kasterlee, BelgiumHardback, 245 x 165mm, 128p, English/ Dutch editionPublisher: MER.paperkunsthalle, Belgium With Jochem Vanden Ecker, Mira Sanders, Helena Sidiropoulos, Koenraad Dedobbeleer, Nico Dockx, Philip Janssens, Willo Gonnissen, Agnès Geofrray and Frederik Van Simaey

L’ATELIER (2007)

Brigitte Aubry (BA), Marie-Pascale Gildemyn (MPG) and Mira Sanders (MS) in conversation in L’Atelier (excerpt from the catalogue Young Belgian Awards 2007)

MS. Although the scene is absent, its presence will make itself felt because the camera is installed in its place. The cam-era will rotate a full 360 degrees: a succession of fragments, all taken from the same fixed point, with fictive individuals that evoke a public, an imaginary people with specific characteristics.

BA. Is this work about the stereotype or the anecdotal? Is it a micro-society?

MS. Yes, a micro-society. I have also done a work on the anecdote. I like the idea that the so-called unimportant anec-dote should contain a certain essence.

BA. It’s also what differs from the ordinary ...

MPG. And links up with a kind of collective memory ...

MS. I’ll be bound to forget certain persons.MPG. Which public is it actually about?

MS. It will be a copy of the public, both figuratively and materially ... I take photos of the reality in which I walk and travel, or I take them from magazines.

MPG. Why did you choose Courbet’s Atelieras the starting-point?

MS. It’s a painting that has always intrigued me, even when I saw the original, because it is usually only known from reproductions.The idea ofreproduction, of images of the collective memory, is important in this work.

MPG. It’s the first time you use people. As if a longing for humanity ...MS. I didn’t want an empty stage scene this time. A presence, even if it is only a copy of a human being, introduces a scale.

BA. Courbet regarded reality as a raw material to be transformed. There’s something of that in your work ... You start out from reality – the history of the Palais des Beaux-Arts, the correspondence between Horta and Le Bœuf, facts, exchanges, identities, stereotypes – and you construct something completely original.

MS. Reality ... it’s like the colour that you can mix on the palette to paint.

BA. But where you part company with Courbet is when he wanted to act as a catalyst on the history that was to come.

MPG. L‘Atelier is a ‘realist manifesto’.

MS. The tableaux are certainly asserting something, but they are not a manifesto.

BA. Do you want the ‘real’ public to question its own position as a public?

MS. It’s still too early for me to say.

MPG. For me, the public is a means of affirming that there is a tableau, a scene, theatre ...

MS. And scale too. ...

Transcription: Laurence Pen and Benoît RousselEditing: Brigitte Aubry, Marie-Pascale Gildemyn and Mira SandersTranslation from French by Peter Mason

L’ATELIER installation:1 x 14 tableaux (text on slides)1 x video L’Atelier (The Public in the theatre)folder The Public (printed matter)

22.06. - 09.09.2007Young Belgian Painting Awards 2007 with Virginie Bailly, Koenraad Dedobbeleer, Gabriel Lester, Cédric Noël, Sarah Vanagt and Pieter VermeershBOZAR, Brussels, Belgium

L’Atelier, 2007 - photo: Griet Dekoninckinstallation view

L’Atelier, The Public, 2007excerpt folder

L’Atelier, The Public, 2007video stills

SILENT CHINA(2007)


Trying to define your work in words is maybe the most difficult thing to do, although trying to define what you see is maybe worse.(excerpt of Le journal d’un usager de l’espace, Mira Sanders)

These thoughts still linger in my mind, and even more so when I traveled to China last summer. It was as if I almost couldn’t take photographs, or film. Surely a strange feeling, in a country where technology and media are trump cards! You can close your eyes, but it is difficult to close your ears. So I listened, and I visualized my observations in drawings and notes. Trying to visualize what I heard and thus trying to understand a new culture (for me!) and to explore the possibilities of this/its system.

I held an exhibition in December 2006 at SECONDroom, an art space initiated by the artist Christophe Floré, in Brus-sels (Belgium), which offered a glimpse of my ‘wanderings’ in the cities Shanghai and Xiamen, as well as a first reflection of the work I made as an artist-in-residence at the CEAC, Xiamen. For that project I invited the graphic designer Jef Cuypers to work with my notebook, as I needed to take distance from my drawings and notes, relating to the distance I felt during my ‘wanderings’. The exhibition presented a selection of visual material (drawings, printed matter, ...). In addition, some recorded sounds were presented on the website of SECONDroom.

January 2007, I’m back here in China. This transition time was important for me. I could take distance from my experiences too. And it is strange the feeling of grasping your memory when you are coming back to ‘a place’. Cause it is like all the time you want to make comparisons of your first impressions and at the same it is not true.For the exhibition at the CEAC I present a publication, on a newspaper format, which I print out on several issues.The publication includes a selection of the drawings I made during my ‘walk’. The newspaper format was chosen in regard to the use of the public newspaper in China. I like the idea of collective reading. Which doesn’t exist in my country. Therefore, the aim is that this newspaper publication is for free for the public and can have as well an existence outside the walls of the exhibition. Maybe it will have a place in a library, in a suitcase, in a trash ...The ‘noise’ images, which were posters in the exhibition in Brussels, are now drawn or painted on wooden panels. Dur-ing my stay in Xiamen, I loved to work on this huge wooden panel table in my studio. You can eat on it, draw, work, write, put objects and papers you collected during your daily walks, have flowers on it, ...A video, Silent China, with excerpts of recorded sounds and notes I made during my journey in China, draws among others, a vertical rectangle in the exhibition space. A video without images, but maybe a ‘black’ image is more than an ‘image’? The title of this video refers also to the title of the exhibition by this I send you some of the city I am in. ‘Noise’ can have several meanings; the ‘noise’ of traffic in a city, the ‘noise’ of machines, ..., but as well ‘noise’ in the head. Ques-tioning a time being, questioning your perceptions. Not that the aim is to find answers, on the contrary, but realize a story with an open end.

I use ‘send’, like you can send a postcard or a letter. To give by this an idea of the place you are. You can send your greetings to your friends or family and say that everything is fine and soon you will see each other back. Writing is a silent medium. But if you read the text, it is a sound, a voice in your head.It can even be an image.

Mira Sanders, November 2006 – January 2007

by this I send you some noise of the city I am in, 2007invitation drawing

by this I send you some noise of the city I am inMixed Media:Silent China, video, sound, English & Chinese texts, b&w, 13’02”, 2007Publication on newspaper format, 500 issuesNoise drawings on wooden panels

19.01. - 11.02.2007by this I send you some noise of the city I am in (solo exhibition)Chinese European Art Center, Xiamen University Art CollegeXiamen, China

by this I send you some noise of the city I am in, 2007exhibition views

by this I send you some noise of the city I am in, 2007exhibition views

LÉXIQUE ENCYCLOPÉDIQUE (2007)

léxique encyclopédique #1printed matter

9.11.2007 - 26.01.2008MULTI/PLIER (group exhibition)Elke Boon, Harrisson, Edith Dekyndt, Peter Hulsmans, Nathalie Hunter, Jimena Kato Murakami, Nurse, Sophie Nys, Benoit Platéus, Emmanuelle Villard, Pieter Vermeersch, Heidi VoetCurator: Edith DooveGallery les filles du calvaire Brussels, Belgium


For the exhibition MULTI/PLIER I draw up the first ‘léxique encyclopédique’. You can see it as an inventory of words related to a specific site (here the gallery context). During the exhibition time the public was free of taking posters. Like in an encyclopedia images and definitions related to the given words are presented. The definitions were taken in a specific frame of time in the well known open source encyclopedia, wikipedia.org. This project is a questioning about how we use words and expressions in a specific context and realise that the meaning of these are not always concord-ing with their use. As well that meanings change or develop in time, the wikipedia is a beautiful example for that. You realise also that languages have their own specifities and that expressions differ from one another.

We try to make a process-based exhibition with three important meeting points: the opening day, a day of conferences and finally the finissage. These moments can be seen as 1) the proposition, 2) the reflection and 3) the conclusion.The title « multi/plier » points to the dynamic of movement, of a coming and going, the multiplication of positions and mean-ings. Edith Doove, September 2007 (excerpt of the pressrelease)

léxique encyclopédique - photo: Pieter Huybrechtsexhibition view at galerie les filles du calvaire, Brussels

léxique encyclopédique #1 - the opening - photo: Pieter Huybrechtsexhibition view at galerie les filles du calvaire, Brussels

léxique encyclopédique #1 - the finissage - photo: Pieter Huybrechtsexhibition view at galerie les filles du calvaire, Brussels

L’UNION - DE UNIE (2006)


For the exhibition in M DD (museum Dhondt-Dhaenens) I proposed the network project l’Union - de Unie which started by writing to all institutions in a radius of about 300 km around the museum Dhondt-Dhaenens that corre-spond to one or more of the criteria mentioned in the letter below. 17 museums accepted the offer and collaborated. So at the same time and on different places, l’Union - de Unie was presented.Next to the flagpole and selected flag in the heart of the building of M DD, technical card-indexes of the different participating museums were exhibited. As well as research drawings and anecdotes towards the preparation of the project.For one month I was working in the offices of the M DD together with the staff members, preparing the communica-tion and networking for the project and the exhibition.

participants

MAC’s (MUSEE DES ARTS CONTEMPORAINS), Hornu, BelgiqueS.M.A.K. (STEDELIJK MUSEUM VOOR ACTUELE KUNST), Gent, BelgiëM HKA (MUSEUM VAN HEDENDAAGSE KUNST ANTWERPEN), Antwerpen, BelgiëMIDDELHEIMMUSEUM, Wilrijk, BelgiëMAMAC (LE MUSEE D’ART MODERNE ET D’ART CONTEMPORAIN DE LA VILLE DE LIEGE), Liège, BelgiqueM DD (museum Dhondt-Dhaenens), Deurle, België49 Nord 6 Est - FONDS REGIONAL D’ART CONTEMPORAIN DE LORRAINE, Metz, FranceFONDS REGIONAL D’ART CONTEMPORAIN NORD-PAS-DE-CALAIS, Dunkerque, FranceLA MAISON ROUGE FONDATION ANTOINE DE GALBERT, Paris, FranceMUSEE DES BEAUX-ARTS, Tourcoing, FranceMUSEUMS DE PAVILJOENS, Almere, NederlandGEM (MUSEUM VOOR ACTUELE KUNST), Den Haag, NederlandGEMEENTEMUSEUM HELMOND, Helmond, NederlandMUSEUM HET DOMEIN SITTARD, Sittard, NederlandDE PONT MUSEUM VOOR HEDENDAAGSE KUNST, Tilburg, NederlandSKULPTURENMUSEUM GLASKASTEN MARL, Marl, Deutschland

l’Union - de Uniemixed media:17 flags + 1 mast17 digital prints A41 digital print A01 letter (to the museums)drawings (mixed media)

4.06 - 26.06.2006Pictures This! Mira Sanders (solo show)M DD (museum Dhondt-Dhaenens), Deurle, Belgium

Deurle, 2006.03.31

Dear MissDear Mister

At the moment I am working on an exhibition that will take place as a part of the program Picture This!, in the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Deurle (Gent), from June 4th through 25th, 2006. For this project I am researching the museum as a concept, as well as the institution’s symbolic meaning within society. I consider the museum as a place loaded with his-tory, tradition, reflection and ideas, but also as a place that is part of a network.

Indeed, not only a museum’s collection and program matter to the public, but also how it is implanted in the landscape. While a museum in a city is visible for all passers-by, the situation is totally different for a museum situated in a more rural environment. Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens is not situated in a city, nor in the center of a village or in a street. Yet it does communicate with the public, and with other museums and cultural institutions, even if it doesn’t have the same visibility.

For this reason I want to give this communication a bigger visibility. On the occasion of this exhibition I am proposing a symbol - a loud-speaker - that I designed, together with several onto which this symbol is to be applied, in different colors.

The Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens and myself would like to share this symbol with you. We therefore propose to you to select one of the flags in the accompanying document, as a symbol of solidarity and a sign of friendship. We further invite you to contribute to this project by hanging this flag in a visible spot, for the duration of the exhibition, June 4 - 25, 2006 , either on a flagpole or from a window of your museum on the side of the street. As a result, a broader and more varied public will be able to see the flag/ the symbol, and the more curious among them will certainly inquire as to its meaning.

Below I list some of the criteria I used in selecting the museums who, I hope, will participate in this project:- A collection of visual art- A collection with work of various artists- A collection which represents the contemporary art world: exhibitions with works by younger artists, by established artists, by living artists.- A collection involved with forms of reflection: editions, publications, conferences, educational department.- Functioning as part of a national/international network- A collection linked with a museographical function: laboratory, production, research, experiment, interdisciplinary projects- A collection with a circle of friends: an existing network but also future friends, an expanding circle

In a radius of about 300 km around the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens I have looked for all museums that, just like yours, correspond to one or more of these criteria. Maybe you will make the reflection that I could just as well expand my re-search to the entire world... I would only be able to answer that one has to limit oneself to some extent, and that is why I have drawn this line.

I sincerely hope that you, together with the museum that you represent, will grant your collaboration to this project. There-fore I am asking you to let us know before this april 20th which flag you prefer, either by mail to the following address:

M DD (Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens)Picture This! - Mira SandersMuseumlaan 14B-9831 DeurleBelgië

Either by fax to the number:+ 32 (0)9-281.08.53

or by e-mail:[email protected]

Please feel free to contact me if you would like more information or if you should have further questions.Hoping to receive your favorable answer soon, and with my best regards,

Mira Sanders- this project is copyrighted by Mira Sanders & M DD (museum Dhondt-Dhaenens), 2006 -

Technical rider: flags

Art: flags printedAmount: 21Dimensions: 100 (H) X 150 (W) CMColours: digital colour printQuality: 100% woven polyester 115 gr/ml’Union - de Unie

8 different design of flags were drawn and proposed

l’Union - de Unie - M DD, Gent, Belgium(more images and drawings see http://users.skynet.be/mimirage/works/luniondeunie.html

l’Union - de Unie - MAC’s (MUSEE DES ARTS CONTEMPORAINS), Hornu, Belgique(more images and drawings see http://users.skynet.be/mimirage/works/luniondeunie.html)

l’Union - de Unie - DE PONT MUSEUM VOOR HEDENDAAGSE KUNST, Tilburg, Nederland(more images and drawings see http://users.skynet.be/mimirage/works/luniondeunie.html)

EXCERPT OF A DAY (2006)


Excerpt of a Day is an episode of sound from a day, from an everyday life. For Mira Sanders the perception of the ordi-nary, while walking, observing, exploring the space, is always a form of enquiry. In Excerpt of a Day the real is returned to the possible. The absence of representation by images creates a mental space in sound, an imaginary vacuum out of which new images may arise. The spectator is thrown back on his or her own resources, screened off the flood of images that surrounds us daily. So when a ‘real’, a representative image does after all appear, neither content nor context is provided: an empty theatre stretches out over an imaginary audience.

Excerpt of a day, 2006video still

Excerpt of a Day2006, 4’45”, video, b&w, sound

SCREENINGS of EXCERPT OF A DAY:

2007 Open Archive #1, re:collections : acquisitions 2005-2007, argos, Brussels, BelgiumFull Pull Festival, Malmö, SwedenBorderline festival, “ We Cannot Stop, To Stop Is To Fail”, Platform China, Beijing, P.R. of China (as installation)Transat Video at Les Filles du Calvaire, Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris, France (as installation)

2006deDonderdagen, deSingel, Antwerp, Belgium

LE DIALOGUE DE SOURDS (2006)

le dialogue de sourdsprinted matter

16, 17, 18.09.2005In a Tall Distance with Mr. Reis (group exhibition)with Rosa Barba, Banu Cennetoglu, Bojan Fajfric, Sanja MedicIstanbul, Turkey


A dialogue of deafs, a dialogue between the art historian and art critic Marie-Pascale Gildemyn and me. Through open letters the dialogue breaks the silence or recovers the silence. A reflection on the ‘non-said’. (Art) References are used and determine the way and the rythm of the dialogue. The use of the ‘image’ in its cultural heritage.

This project is still in construction and finds his first steps as a storyboard of drawings presented at BAS, Istanbul in the context of the Istanbul Biennial 2005. All the drawings (images) have an illustration reference: a number and the credit of the image.

In a Tall Distance with Mr. Reis, 2005exhibition views

Le dialogue de sourds, 2005drawings, mixed media, 40 x 50 cm

Le dialogue de sourds, 2005drawings, mixed media, 40 x 50 cm

LA COMÉDIE (2005)

La Comédievidéo, 4’, silent, b&w, 20051 x billboard with the inscription décorposter : recto text La Comédie, verso the actors of La Comédie (1000 issues)Produced by Transat Video

17, 18, 19.06.2005ONDULATIONS (group exhibition), an event presented by L’Autre Café & Transat VideoLe lac de la roche qui boit, Saint-Aubin-de-Terregatte, Normandie, France

2ième acte (fragment of the text La Comédie)

The spectacle, the theatre, the comedy, the decor...they are all protagonists of the scene. At this moment, the scene is there where I am and you, you are the public. I hope this piece will please you, a piece that is not. A decor (decors) exists (exist) and the model (the actor) takes place: the author creates the book La Comédie and he dedicates a blank page to the public. The blank page has the title La dédicace.In this piece, different times of dedications are held, in a specific frame and time. The public authorizes the dedica-tion which is then dated and signed by the author.

The actors stay anonymous. Actors of my imagination, authors of their universe.

The Anonymous Actors

La Comédie 2005installation view

DON’T LET OUR YOUTH GO TO WASTE (2004)

don’t let our youth go to wastevideo, ca. 3’, colour, soundperformance with Christophe Florédrum: Niko Bruggemanstext: Jonathan Richman

19.12.2004THAT’S ENTERTAINMENTa sing-along evening organized by Olivier Foulon and Ella KlaschkaVOLLEVOX 16, Komplot, Petit Théatre MercelisBrussels, Belgium

Don’t let our youth go to waste

I need a walk by the flowersLet some of it shimmer off ...Looks like nobody could take your placeAnd I could bleed in sympathy with youOn those daysAnd I could drink up everything you haveDon’t let it go to waste

I could show you memoriesTo rival Berlin in the ThirtiesI understand you’re ...And I could bleed in sympathy with youOn those daysAnd I could drink up everything you haveDon’t let it go to waste

Say something warm, say something niceI can’t to see you when you’re coldNor can I stand being out of your lifeAnd I could bleed in sympathy with youOn those daysAnd I could drink up everything you haveDon’t let our youth go to waste

Jonathan Richman

The Minimals, stage view with Christophe Floré, 2004

LA GIRAFE (2004)

ceci pour vous donner une idée de la girafevideo, b/w, silent, 6’40’’, 20044000 postal cards editedProduced by Transat Video

8.10.2004Arts’sisses de la rue organised by Transat Video, Caen, Francewith Marie-Pierre Besnard, Anne Cleary & Denis Connolly, Isabelle Le Minh, Mark Lewis, Alexandra Sà, Muriel Toulemonde


La Girafe is presented on the lawn of the Saint-Etienne-le-Vieux church, near the roundabout of the townhall (one of the most prestigious of France) of the city Caen. This place involves lots of traffic and is in the continuation of the Ar-cisse de Caumont street. Arts’sisses de la rue is a one night event and at this occasion la girafe is projected on a billboard which is especially set up on the lawn of the prestigious and touristic place. So la girafe is surrounded by lovely historic buildings as for example the fabulous Abbaye-aux-Hommes. She shows herself, on her way. A photographic sequens is edited with text: black & white photos from la girafe were taken from different positions and are interchanging with her historic specifications(text). These images give an idea of la girafe. To kill the ephemere, a postal card is edited. Of course with the image of la girafe. So I will be able to send a postcard to my friends and my family and to give them by this way an idea of the sightseeings of Caen. To write them that the trip is on his best and that soon we’ll see each other again.

Note:Look at my website to download the digital edition of ceci pour vous donner une idée de la girafe with a text by Laurence Pen (French & Dutch version).

ceci pour vous donner une idée de la girafe, 2004video still, M.S.

ceci pour vous donner une idée de la girafe, 2004installation views at the end of Artsisse street in Caen

COURIR LES RUES... (2003)

courir les rues...mixed media:girouette, video, 3’, silent, colour, 2003drawingsmirrormodel (city)spotlightpaper edition courir les rues ... (40/40) (with the text of Marie-Pascale Gildemyn)postal card (3000)

18.07. – 7.09.2003courir les rues... (solo show)etablissement d’en face projects, Brussels, Belgium


Courir les rues... is a project under construction. My work starts with the drawing and concretizes it through it. A serie of drawings is selected for this exhibition. They show my perceptions, perceptions of my city, of the little everyday things of life. Insignificant, banal images are evoken. I memorise them and put them on paper. This project will be shown in a certain time and in his own media.

Note:Look at my website to download the digital edition of courir les rues... with a text by Marie-Pascale Gildemyn.

courir les rues..., 2003postcard, M.S.

courir les rues..., 2003 - photo: Griet Dekoninckinstallation views

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