PROTECT ME 

AMOK KAAP  BRUGE

Sculpture/intervention,

Public statues, fabric, protective materials gathered from residents, 2022

​

​

​

An interactive intervention in the city on and around four monuments.

Monuments and statues have a specific function in a city: they commemorate an event, they are a tribute to something or someone, they aim to incite us to pious or different thoughts and function as landmarks in the city.

But what if the monument is suddenly wrapped up and made unrecognizable?

Are we thereby protecting our heritage? Do we come to the realization that we didn't actually know for whom or what that monument was erected? Do we lose our bearings or do we start seeing things we didn't notice before even though we pass it every day?

Veerle Michiels and Jonas Vansteenkiste have been working together for several years on projects concerning the function and meaning of monuments. While internationally fierce discussions are being held about the knocking down of monuments to figures with a bad past, in other places statues and monuments are being wrapped with bed sheets and mattresses to protect them from bomb hits. With the help of local residents, Michiels and Vansteenkiste want to wrap four statues during AMOK and use them to enter into a dialogue with the city about the function and meaning of its - tangible and intangible - heritage.