In Blankenberge Square, "Kneaded Memory" by Portugese artist Dalila Gonçalves is an outdoor sculpture garden of concrete-cast boulders partially covered with decorative Portugese "azulejos" tiles. The public art installation is running through September 2012 as part of Beaufort04.
Each patterned "stone" has been made so by the artist’s use of hand crafted tiles which typically adorn her home country’s vibrant façades while decorated in the style of Brussels’ Blankenberge region.
The use of tile, concrete and form suggest remains or parcels, and it is through this assemblage that the artist sought to cross local narrative (the tile's patterns are from Blankenberge) and the Portuguese traditional artisanal craft of tile-making.
To develop the outdoor installation, the artist and her team mapped the outer surface of the boulders (which were made from concrete, not naturally occurring)*. A grid was used to mark where each decorative component would be positioned. Then, each piece of vibrant earthenware was fitted onto the convex and concave formation of the rocks, adopting the surface of these objects.
The ceramic tiles were molded to sit perfectly on the irregular and round surfaces of these forms, melding the two and creating an installation which combines ancient Portuguese ceramic work with the notion of the increasing degradation, destruction and exclusion of the decorative element in architectural use.
*Designboom, an excellent site, was mistaken in that these rocks are not 'naturally occurring organic forms', but were created from cast concrete for this project.
Dalila Gonçalves: Kneaded Memory
Beaufort04, Blankenberge,
Belgium on until September 30th, 2012
images courtesy of Dalila Gonçalves, beaufort04, Designboom, and Diario Design
Dalila Gonçalves