M HKA Ensembles

In a world with limited natural and social resources, the search for a balance between well-being and prosperity requires constant reflection. What material abundance, within the available limits, is required for optimal well-being? And in this quest, in what capacity and in what role do individuals and public authorities intervene? By combining poetic and engaged perspectives on humans and the world, art often opens up astonishing perspectives in this field.

Several Senate information reports address the concept of well-being, through issues like climatic objectives, hormone disrupters or the development of e-health platforms.

This multimedia installation is part of the ambitious HeadNurse project that Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven (°1951, living in Antwerp) started in 1995. The project consists of exhibitions and ‘reports’ in which the artist offers her services, as a ‘head nurse’, to the present visual arts and, without the slightest irony, showcases the healing role of art.

Inspired by the ephemeral aspects of everyday life, Edith Dekyndt (°1960, living in Tournai and Berlin) went beyond sculpture to grasp the changing states through video recording. In Worthlessness she follows the intriguing and whimsical choreography of a plastic bag in ever changing environments (this video was created well before the movie American Beauty).

In his film, Sasha Pirogova (°1986, living in Moscow) makes human bodies dance together in a surprising way, with the knowledge management system of the Russian state library. It thus reveals qualities and possibilities of unexpected experiences in a system which seemed to make everything homogeneous. Actually, it is our movements that provide quality of life, pleasure and depth.

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