Gent Bad — research & installation — 2023-25
While public open-air bathing places in Flanders are drastically shrinking and increasingly shifting to the private and holiday sphere, bathing culture had a strong presence in the urban landscape over the past century and was part of the daily living environment of the people of Ghent. Within a rapidly changing and diversifying urban context, this ongoing artistic research explores the current potential of these former public open-air bathing places.
The installation exhibited at ‘FORMAT 2023: Water Expeditions’ brought together a collection of diverse visual sources (photographs from city, museum and private archives, old architectural plans, satellite images, self-taken photographs, etc.). By cutting up these images and combining them in a spatial composition, the former public open-air bathing places of Ghent entered into dialogue with the current shortage of swimming water. Different layers of time came together and invited to reflect on future possibilities.
The installation exhibited at ‘FORMAT 2023: Water Expeditions’ brought together a collection of diverse visual sources (photographs from city, museum and private archives, old architectural plans, satellite images, self-taken photographs, etc.). By cutting up these images and combining them in a spatial composition, the former public open-air bathing places of Ghent entered into dialogue with the current shortage of swimming water. Different layers of time came together and invited to reflect on future possibilities.