PATRICK BERNATCHEZ - SOL/GROND

SOME CULTURE...

Congolese and Canadian drill cores engraved and encrusted in bronze (2018)

Sol/Grond is deeply rooted in the history of both nations, Belgium and Canada. A socio-political work inspired by stories associated with the exploitation of natural and human resources, it is symbolic, both here and in Canada. Through modest interventions on the balustrades and handrails at both ends of the station, the work is intended to be a correspondence, both material and cultural, of stories intertwined by the experience of the cultural uprooting of refugee, migrant and exiled survivors. Drill cores from Congolese and Inuit territories were assembled in bronze and engraved with fragments from two testimonials. The testimonials were by Pie Tshibanda and Martha Flaherty, both of whom experienced colonisation - one from Congo, the other from the Inuit territories - and exile. The drill cores are positioned on vertical fixings to form a handrail on both sides of the station, at the mezzanine level.