Ghosts don't have shadows
Geert De Taeye
As Brussels today is a “ghost town”, I drew inspiration by the Indonesian myth of Pocong, the shred ghost representing a soul trapped in its white sheets. This character is currently used in Indonesia to scare people in order to increase their awareness of COVID-19 danger.
I have a strong connection with Java because of previous projects on the island: to me, it always conveyed a mysterious atmosphere.
In this new project the personal adaptation of the myth of Pocong is a metaphor for the ghost city Brussels has become because of the COVID-19 restrictions. The muted streets as a big theatre - the only one allowed these days... - playing the invisible side by side walk of Life and Death. The few spectators are lonely and by themselves, showing the defection of disappearance: like outlaw ghosts drifting around the city, without neither direction nor substance, they are suspended in time and space. Not even the wrapping shreds of Pocong ghosts for them: in their transparent presence there’s the memory of what they were and the possibility of what they could be.
Finally, they don’t have shadows, because ghosts don’t have shadows.
