According to Oswald Spengler’s book “The Decline of the West”, the Western world is in fact coming to an end, and the 20th century is the last throes of the "winter season" of this civilization. 

We spend a lot of time together during the winter of 2024 and began strolling around the city at night pondering about Ghent and Bruges and how their blooming medieval past, Flemish Primitive painters and archicture have become some kind of appealing touristic experience of old European authenticity.


As tourism became a more accessible and widespread phenomenon during the 20th century it is reaching a commercial peak at the beginning this era. Thanks to lower costs, economic growth, and tech-driven democratization, traveling is more affordable than ever. Meanwhile, Europe is being overtaken in the globalization race by many countries in Asia and beyond. As Europe loses it’s political, economic and ideological prominence, what do we have left to offer?

For centuries, Eurocentric views have fetishized the way we look at other cultures. What happens if we reverse this view and take a look at ourselves? 

This installation consists of sculptured musicians (minstrels both wearing pilgrim badges) and one figure enjoying a plate of sausages on a wagon with speakers through which very loud field recordings and music is being played.
There is a cardboard tapestry, also known as Karton* on which the figures are performing. Magnet reproductions of the Karton can be bought for €5.
The mobile tourist attraction plays with the idea of being a metaforical oroboros. As we feel our society and culture are under a constant thread of decline, one could argue we have nothing left to offer tourists but our past. The tourism sector capitalizes on this lucrative commodity and so we give the people what they want.
We created this attraction inspired by the blooming medieval past of the city in which it was made: Ghent. But don't get it twisted, it is a hodgepodge of Brueghlian- Bayeuxesque- and contemporay references, insomnia and loads of PU foam smeared everywhere. It balances between a sincere artistic effort and something that could have been made by a bunch of vagrant characters. This way our psychotic and overly optimistic attempt to commercialize our cultural relevance within a global tourism-economy and thereby transcend Spenglers visions fails once again. We become a kind of 21st-century outgrowth in an oroboros-like motion, consuming itself over and over again.


*In the visual arts, a Karton is a full-size, coloured or uncoloured sketch that serves as a model for the actual tapestry.