Artwork of the month - video (59 sec).

Mandorla Arcade - Fire Figures

Year	2025
Size	38 cm x 55 cm x 2 cm
Materials	Corten steel
Edition	1/1
For Sale	Yes, contact our gallery Fred&Ferry (Antwerp, BE)
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Frank&Robbert Robbert&Frank collaborated with Dertien12 architects and Pierre Muyle to create several art integrations for Arcade, Gistel (BE). Arcade is a care facility providing care and shelter for dozens of youngsters in the North of West-Flanders. In Gistel, a total of 4 new units have been built. R&F F&R made special tiling as part of the floor design, an outdoor temple consisting of 2 concrete circles forming a shelter protecting an inner table with amulets and a corten steel circle of figures guarding a central fire.

To connect the new facilities of Arcade with the other locations, Frank and Robbert have created an additional series of fire figures: 6 corten steel and 1 ceramic figure have been placed between the hamlet of ‘Zevekote’ and the city of Ostend (BE). Connecting all locations is important. It generates a sense of unity and a sense of attachment. It generates a new story where all youngsters are linked and they are all part of one story, one positive future.

The figures themselves have been designed with a playful ambiguity: on the one hand, they seem to be celebrating; hands high in the air. Like if they are doing some sort of unified dance. It’s an ode to life, an ode to positivity. The figures represent autonomy and the power that one has to act in his / hers own life. On the other hand, the high-raised arms seem mystical… Like devotional. As if the figures are calling to the sky, to Mother Nature, to God, and they are connecting with the past, present, and the future. They are not individual. They are connected with the cosmos.

This duality is key to this art integration. We all need to be active in our own lives. We need to take up the life force and transform every day into a new possibility. On the other hand, we need to be connected with everything and everyone. No one can live on its own. We only gain depth and meaning by interacting with our environment.

In this way, this art intervention is subtle. It’s a hidden message, a whisper, a dream… That only finds meaning when you choose to pay attention to it.

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