09.12.2022 - 15.01.2023
exhibition | pluridisciplinary
neimënster

Balthazar Blumberg & Ithier Held - Restitution Wallonie Bruxelles International

Terres Rouges, called “Minett” in Luxembourgish, is full of iron ore: it is therefore naturally in this region that the major part of the mining and steel industry in Luxembourg was established. In decline for several decades, Luxembourg’s industry has almost come to a standstill nowadays, causing profound changes in this territory located in the south of the Grand Duchy. After many mutations, this territory has managed to reconvert a large part of its industrial wastelands, transforming them into universities as well as housing complexes, while keeping a strong attractiveness, mainly due to the proximity of the city of Luxembourg, an important financial center, where a large part of the population works every day. Located on the borders of Belgium and France, this territory also appears as transversal, connected both by the many border workers and by the European Development Pole (PED), in charge of creating an attractive economic space on the border tripoint, thus trying to counter the steel crisis of the Lorraine basin.

The photographic project presented here tends to give an account of what this territory is currently in transition, through the external viewpoint of the photographer-explorer, discovering the places as he shoots, trying to understand and assimilate this territory, and synthesizing it through the image. He creates here a topographic mission of the places, without trying to make a strict census of the region, avoiding falling into the picturesque or grandiloquent image. The exceptional here tries to find its place in the banal, in the transformation of the landscape by humans, in the evolution of this territory. Confronting the old with the new, the industrial with the rural, this portrait depicting the region remains no less subjective: the choices, conscious or hazardous, lead to the creation of different images according to the spontaneous decisions taken in the moment.

Balthazar Blumberg is inspired by geological elements to create drawings or stories. He is particularly interested in the archival part of minerals and the infinite stories that these elements crystallize. He began his research in the field and in scientific collections to explore the relationship between human time and geological time. During a residency in neimënster in spring 2022, he became interested in the mineral collections of the naturmusée – museum of natural history of Luxembourg. From their samples and documents, he was able to research the geological and mining specificities of the Stolzembourg region, as well as the recent discovery of Luxembourgite, in order to create drawings, photographs, projections and stories. Together with Kieran Young, designer and scenographer, they conceived a modular scenography inspired by the collections. These structures allow the crossing of scientific archives and artistic material to open the interpretation of a collection specimen to the multiple identities it can contain.

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      neimënster

      Inscription obligatoire au vernissage, le 09.12.22 à 18:30

      billetterie@neimenster.lu

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      neimënster

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      Inscription obligatoire au vernissage, le 09.12.22 à 18:30

      billetterie@neimenster.lu