Alex Verhaest
Jour des crêpes - Film - 32min - 2018
présenté dans le cadre de l'exposition Panorama 20
Film
Maria was forty in 1995 when in belgium, in the midst of the Dutroux-crisis, the white marche forced the primacy of churchly influence to sing its swan song.
Last born into a poor and pious family of eleven children, she had succeeded in a tour-de-force which would take her seven sisters two generations; she had definitively distinguished herself from her inherited role as the housewife under the crusifix.
Her favourite sister took up this role for her family. As less than an equal but more than a servant Benedicte sees to providing Maria’s daughter Madeleine with a cleanly and steady rhythm in step with the desanctified Church bells. A rhythm mocked by her own son, Dominik who is convinced different times are coming.
Both women identify with the things they feel are lacking in their life. Their emancipation, or lack thereof, has proven to be one of communicating vessels, with an emptiness as the result of plentitude.
Jour des crêpes is about the relationship between these two sisters. They symbolise the generation of nervous mothers of Flanders nineties.
Alex Verhaest
Alex Verhaest’s work operates on the juxtaposition of painting, videogame and cinema extended. With each new film, Verhaest dives into what it means to make films in a multi-screen post-Nintendo society.
During her MFA year, Verhaest travelled to China where she discovered the Asian hacker subculture. She was invited to participate in a six-month residency at island6 Arts Center in Shanghai where she joined the former collective ‘Platform for Urban Investigations’. She then travelled to Mexico DF, Eindhoven and Salvador da Bahia where she participated in group-shows of the collective at the Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico, the Van Abbe Museum and the Museo de Arte Moderna. In 2009, she decided to focus more on her own practice and to leave the collective. Her work has since been exhibited in numerous institutions (ZKM karlruhe, HKW Berlin, Bozar) and has been selected by several arts and new media festivals and competitions; i.e. the FILE electronic language festival in Sao Paolo, the New Technology Art Award in Gent, TAZ Oostende and Arts Festival Watou, and her work is featured in the Akzo Nobel Collection. She won the New Face Award at the Japan Media arts Festival. Verhaest’s work has been awarded with the prestigious 2015 Ars Electronica Golden Nica.
Remerciements
First of all, my thanks go to Béla Tarr. His attentiveness and his advice enabled me to develop a new gaze. I warmly thank Melissa Dhont for her strong support in the making of Jour des crêpes. I also thank Hélène Devos, Marijke Pinoy, Els Deceuckelier and César De Sutter, whose contributions to the film went beyond anything I could have imagined. I thank all my technical team, notably Korneel Moeyaert who enchanted us with his light. I also thank all the personnel at Le Fresnoy for their expertise, their belief and their patience, and Early Birds Films. Finally, I wish to thank my father and my mother-in-law who helped me so deeply this year.
