Germaine Kruip presents “Resonance”, a new site-responsive work for the Antwerp Central Station. Resonance springs from Kruip’s vivid — and visceral— memory of the anti-Semitic terrorist attack that occurred in the Antwerp diamond trade district on the morning of October 20th, 1981. At the time, the artist was eleven years old and in school, not far from the site of the explosion.
With this work, Kruip makes tangible and audible the long-lasting impact of this tragedy. She also proposes a harmonic and reflective counterpoint to traumas of the past. While official history offers a narrative of political and economic failures and successes, we mustn’t forget that there is also personal memory, which produces stories often left untold or told indirectly, without words. This is how “Resonance” speaks.
The work consists of a five-part, twenty-meter long brass horizontal structure, displayed along the balcony above the ticketing office in the station’s monumental entrance hall. When activated, the brass beams create deep reverberations, producing overtones and generating new fields of resonance that travel throughout the space. The musical sculpture is accompanied by a unique composition that will be performed by five percussionists. The first performance takes place on the 20th of October, 2021, exactly forty years after the tragic events.
Due to the explosion the doors and stained-glass windows of the Portuguese synagogue shattered, along with storefronts and windows for blocks around, in a radius of 500 meters. It was feared that subsequent attacks would take Antwerp Central Station as their target, thus threatening to shatter the station’s striking dome and glass canopy.
With “Resonance”, the echo of the past resounds, as does the possibility to start anew and build upon the rubble of this past. Each new layer of sound builds upon the previous one; each strike of the instrument causes a vibration that moves us. Germaine Kruip has been developing brass works since 2017 in close collaboration with renowned instrument-maker Thein Brass. These objects, made from a unique metal alloy, exist at the intersection of the visual arts and the world of music
