[07]
Workshop
Game of Stones
Du cortex jaillirent les pierres qui exaltèrent les gravats

Hotel Charleroi
14 – 16 November 2014
Charleroi, BE

Between 2009 and 2014, a series of artistic actions and research projects were held in Charleroi, an industrial city in decline located sixty kilometres south of Brussels. To this end, the artists Adrien Tirtiaux, Antoine Turillon and Hannes Zebedin initiated the overall project Hotel Charleroi. For them, the city, which had virtually remained unchanged since the 1970s, constituted a highly interesting field of research, offering space to a new generation of artists who could position themselves in relation to Charleroi’s modern and postmodern heritage.

In November 2014, TMML intervened with Game of Stones (du cortex jaillirent les pierres qui exaltèrent les gravats). TMML organized a three-day workshop at the Rive Gauche construction site, a site in the heart of the city that would house a shopping centre from March 2017. The site had been razed to the ground, and protest signs (graffiti, banners) could still be seen here and there from expropriated residents and disgruntled shopkeepers. This site used to be home to a (porn) cinema and, earlier, a brasserie/ inn (which Arthur Rimbaud referred to in his 1870 poem Au Cabaret Vert, cinq heures du soir). By November 2014, after the excavators had come and gone, only red mud remained at the site. Using posters in the city, TMML called on residents and interested parties to come and excavate Rive Gauche. Not just at random, but through calibrated archaeological techniques and principles. Archaeologist Laura Dekoster provided assistance. The ground was neatly divided by means of fluorescent wires, as it should be. The dozens of participants were given professional equipment, including a high-vis vest and helmet. They learned archaeological procedures. They each kept a meticulous record of everything that emerged from the ground (mostly bricks, pieces of rusted metal, and some tiles). While participants in Game of Stones had a great time with this sophisticated staged digging game, this workshop/ action raised a lot of questions among passers-by. There were some amusing comments: ‘Are you looking for dinosaurs or Tutankhamen?’. But Game of Stones mainly wanted to stimulate dialogue between residents and this situation in the heart of Charleroi. TMML asked questions to those passers-by who stopped to watch: ‘What do you think about these works and the new plan for downtown, the future shopping center?’ ‘What influence do citizens actually have on urbanism?’ ‘What kind of a say do they have?’ The three-day workshop ended with a party organized by Hotel Charleroi. In the cold November night, participants, residents and passers-by danced around an immense bonfire.