“If you sleep with the dog, you’ll get the fleas.” A saying Guillaume Bijl often used, reflecting his idiosyncratic view of the world. It provides the starting point for a conversation about memory and reconstruction. How do you re-create an artwork without losing sight of its original context? And what happens when history, memory and fiction become intertwined?

More than twenty years after it was first realised in Watou, Bijl’s In Remembrance of the Earldom of Watou is being reconstructed at Kunsthal Extra City. Ulrike Lindmayr of the Guillaume Bijl Estate and co-curator of the exhibition, joins artist Aline Bouvy and Philippe Van Cauteren, artistic director of S.M.A.K., for a conversation. Bouvy developed the dramaturgy for the revival of Bijl’s theatre piece at Extra City. In 2002, Van Cauteren was curator of the Poëziezomer Watou, where the work was originally presented. Drawing on their different perspectives, they will explore how the installation can be understood today, and the roles that remembrance, reconstruction and artistic interpretation play in this process.

Moderated by Antony Hudek (Kunsthal Extra City).

Practical information

• Location: in the Chapel of Kunsthal Extra City
• Language: Dutch
• Admission: pay what you can, registration required
  
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About the speakers

Aline Bouvy is a visual artist based in Brussels and Luxembourg. Working from a feminist perspective, she questions the norms that govern bodies, spaces and social relations. She studied at the École de Recherche Graphique in Brussels and the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. Her recent solo exhibitions include Cruising Bye at MACS Grand-Hornu (2022) and Hot Flashes at Casino Luxembourg (2025). Her work has also been presented at institutions including Triangle-Astérides in Marseille, Kunsthal Gent, New Space in Liège and Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. In 2026, she took part in Manifesta 16 and represents Luxembourg at the 61st Venice Biennale.

Ulrike Lindmayr (b. 1962) worked in Vienna as an editor for international art magazines and newspapers. She has also worked as an exhibition curator and coordinator for various institutions in Belgium and abroad, and spent several years advising the Flemish government on public art. In 2007, she founded LLS 387, a non-profit space for contemporary art in Antwerp, where she served as artistic director until 2017. In 2011, she co-founded ESCAUTVILLE in Antwerp with artists Koen Theys, Frank Theys, Ria Pacquée, Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, and Wim Catrysse. The organisation is dedicated to the production and distribution of audiovisual art. Since Guillaume Bijl’s passing in June 2025, she has co-managed the Guillaume Bijl Estate with their daughter, Nadia Bijl.

Philippe Van Cauteren trained as an art historian and sociologist. Since 2005, he has been Artistic Director of S.M.A.K., the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent. Over the past decades, he has organised exhibitions and curatorial projects in Brazil, Chile, Iraq, Turkey, Nepal and Belgium. In 2013, he curated the Belgian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, followed by the Iraqi Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. In 2017, he curated the first Kathmandu Triennale in Nepal. In 2027, he will curate the Art Encounters Biennial in Timișoara, Romania.