“Visitors came to Earth. They arrived out of the blue and left without a warning. In the Zone that they occupied without interacting with humankind, they abandoned all sorts of objects. Trap-objects. Bomb-objects. Miracle-objects. Objects that a few stalkers pillage at the risk of their lives, like clueless bugs would colonize the remnants of a roadside picnic. » Roadside Picnic, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, 1972, Back cover of French edition, 2013.
Traumnovelle uses the site of Porte Ouest in Charleroi as an exploration and archive of a glorious industrial history transformed into a sublime ruin. The ultra-realist intervention transcends the decrepitude of the ruined elements and reveals an anthropocenic narrative of beauty and death, transporting visitors to a past that may or may not have taken place.
