Sitting in a box. The world moves. The body is no longer part of the movement. The body gets dragged down into the slowness of the object world. It can react, but no longer act. Like a fly moving in slow drying resin.

A body surrounded by speed and noise and war on all sides. The body has become our last refuge. A body in a box. A body in a box of thoughts, concepts, ideas, and convictions.

I remember the box I grew up in. the box of my homeland. A box of sweet propaganda, of purity, loyalty, and solidarity. I remember the movies that sparked in me a sense of justice and romantic heroism. It is only by stepping out of the box, that I can deduce its shape… and the only way to step out is to enter into another one.

I stepped out of the resin of communism and solidarity, into the fast-paced glue of individual artistry, but my thoughts move slow. Slowed down by cultural preconceptions. The values that keep us safe from the other. The values that box us in, force our gaze into one direction. Ignoring all others.

My body negotiates this space… this limited space in which it is allowed to still move. Caught up in the mental confines of its surroundings.

I’m sitting in the box. It is what it is. A body in a box. Not sad, not heroic, but a man sitting in a box. This man comes from a family surrounded by war… just like so many others. This man is stuck between cultures and viewpoints of the ideals of his homeland and the views of his current abode.

This man moves from one box into another and from there contemplates the myriad of boxes around him. The thousands of boxes containing ideas, bodies, movement, and life.

In the box I relinquish my power to be stuck in discourse. To be caught in the crossfire. To be lost in between…

In the box I return to the power within. To rearrange time, to rearrange space.

The time to look outside without wanting. To look at the world without willing.

In the box I let go of my power to choose one box over another. I become part of the inanimate world of thing that  speak without acting, that breathe the world into being. I become a witness and a statue, to remind me of who I am not.

This project was possible thanks to the support of the Flemish Community and the Flemish Government: Department of culture, youth and media.