Els Vanden Meersch

Els Vanden Meersch (Belgium, 1970)

studied at Sint-Lukas Brussels University

College of Art and Design and at the Royal

Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. She has

been artist in residence several times,

amongst other places in Turkey, Canada

and Romania. Her three previous works in

book format, Transient constrictors (2003),

Paranoid Obstructionist (2004) and Implants

(2006), are soon to be followed by the publication

of the photo series Hosgeldiniz –

welcome. These photos are part of a database

Vanden Meersch built up about ghost

villages in southeastern Turkey. During

the civil war that raged in that region in

the 1980s and 1990s, some 3,500 villages

were emptied as a result of the activities of

the Turkish army and the Kurdish separatist

movement PKK. Poverty also played a

major role. The landscapes photographed

tells us something about the quality of the

care provided. They are painted in bright,

fresh colours, which are supposed to create

a tranquil and homely atmosphere. But

the walls are nevertheless bare and impersonal,

with details that refer to the helpless

dependency of the temporary inhabitants.

The ambiguity of these interiors reveals

the balance that care providers have to try

to achieve between encouraging and limiting,

between the creation of a social safety

net and what some might call ‘an overly

comfortable hammock’. In both cases, we see the lack of any emotional bond with the surroundings.