Philippe van Wolputte (BE)

Forlorn hope

installation
Lotrščak Tower
throughout the duration of the festival

What is the future of Upper Town if its citizens aren’t able to finance the renovation according to the socially insensitive system of monument taxation? Is using radical methods one of the possible scenarios for the frustrated citizens lacking a solution? In Detroit, for example, the tenants who can’t renovate their living spaces through methods prescribed by law set fires to them to get rid of the real estate which is expensive to maintain, but still keep the land where it was built. Are such radical methods a possible future for Upper Town? Those are the questions asked by the piece Forlorn hope through its intervention into public space, and the installation in the Lotrščak Tower, inspired by many fires of Upper Town history.

Bio Though media such as installation, performance, and sculpture Philippe van Wolputte (1982.) deals with finding new meanings for the abandoned and unused places in the urban space, examining what the features which define public space are. As a strategy he regularly uses comprehensive preliminary research in various archives – city, state, radio, and television archives. From 2007 to 2009 he stayed at the Rijksakademie residential program in Amsterdam, where he currently studies. He exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions, such as “We Did It / Disputed Territory”, Chert Gallery, Berlin (Germany), 2010, ‘Cheer Up Fellows’, Blue Episode Foundation, Utrecht (Netherlands), 2009; ‘Temporary Penetrable Exhibition Space 4’, Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam (Netherlands), 2008; ‘In-Depth Study’, Poort Napoleon SMAK, 2006, Ghent (Belgium), Zero Budget Biennial (London, Berlin, Milan, Paris), etc. He works and lives mainly in Amsterdam.