By Myriam Thomas Glass artist
'Between heaven and earth' (2023)
In Flanders, beguinages were established from the 13th century onwards for women who wanted to lead a devout life without taking a monastic vow. From 1940 on, the beguine movement declined sharply and in Flanders it has completely died down since. I wanted to evoke this now silenced world in a small table installation. As my starting material I used some archive daily life photos from around 1920 of a beguinage near Ghent (Belgium). I processed the images and transferred them on multiple layers of float glass, to tranform them in a series of eight 3D viewing boxes.
Detail of the installation (8 viewing boxes).
Dimesions of each viewing box: 19,3 cm (H) x 17,5 cm (W) x 11,4 cm (D).
Kiln fired processed photodecals on multiple layers of float glass.
Wooden boxes.
"The evening service"
3D viewing box , part of the table installation of 8 viewing boxes.
5 layers of float glass , each 16 cm x 16 cm x 0,4 cm.
Processed photo decals, kiln fired and kiln fired painted.
Original postcard from around 1920, used as the starting material for the viewing box on the left.
Source: The digital photo archive "beeldbank"from the city of Ghent (Belgium).