Artwork of the month - video (1 min).

50th Anniversary Ter Dilft

Year	2026
Size	58 cm x 6 cm x 6 cm
Materials	Clay, glaze, ash, champagne, mortar
Edition	1/1
For Sale	Yes, contact us
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To mark the 50th anniversary of the Ter Dilft cultural centre, the artist duo Robbert&Frank Frank&Robbert developed a participatory ritual in which the past, present and future were literally linked together. Instead of a traditional commemorative monument, the artists opted for a symbolic intervention in the building itself: an existing facade stone was removed and replaced with a new one bearing the inscription: ‘GO AWAY SORROW OF THE WORLD’. In this way, the history of Ter Dilft was not only commemorated, but also physically continued.

During Matinee Jubilee, Bornem’s festive ‘longest table’, the artists invited all guests to write down their wishes for Ter Dilft’s next fifty years. These personal messages were then collected and ritually burnt. The ashes of all the wishes were mixed with a splash of champagne and the mortar used to permanently embed the brick into the façade. In this way, hundreds of individual voices were brought together in a single collective gesture, and the public’s hopes for the future were given a permanent place within the architecture of the cultural centre.

The ritual ties in with a recurring line of inquiry within the practice of Robbert&Frank Frank&Robbert, in which ephemeral acts are transformed into tangible matter. Just as in earlier projects, in which written concerns are ritually burnt and the ashes are later reused as raw material for new creations, transformation is also at the heart of this work. Fire does not destroy, but transforms; ash is not an end point, but the beginning of a new story.

With ‘GA WEG LEED VAN DE WERELD’, the artists did not create a monument for the public, but a monument by the public. The artwork literally bears the material traces of the community that has helped shape Ter Dilft over the past fifty years, as well as the dreams that together will guide the next fifty years. In this way, the façade becomes not merely an architectural element, but a vessel for collective memory, hope and solidarity.

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