Few things cheer up a person more than looking children playing. The exhibition of works of Francis Alÿs (born in Antwerp in 1959 as Francis De Smedt) showed us children playing from all over the world.
The Congolese boy in a canary yellow soccer shirt and bright red shorts rolling down a mine ramp in a truck tire; the snail race in the Pajottenland (Belgium) in which the rain washes the paint off the snail shells just after the finish line; the pink-clad Afghan boy flying his kite (the Kite Man). The mouth-masked girl hopping and hopping through the frenzy of Hong Kong street life during the pandemic demonstrates a gripping poeticinnocence. Ukrainian boys play soldier, with their wooden rifles doing to make cars stop at an imaginary checkpoint and check papers and suitcase, the adult betters play the game amusedly. In another game, children mimic the sirens of the air alarm, then flee to an imaginary bomb shelter. It is a worldwide law: children mimic reality.
While adults use speech to process experiences - while adults speak - children play to assimilate the reality they encounter. Their games imitate, mock or defy the rules of the adult society that surrounds them. Play can also help them cope with traumatic experiences such as war experiences by creating a simulacrum of the real and transforming the dramatic circumstances around them into a more fictional, playful world. But the magical thing about a children's game is that it has no secrets, "it's all there is." We as adults should stay true to the child we once were: remember and trust that moment, the most precious of our existence."
This was definitely the bottom line of the Friendship Art and Taste Funday of D27 area 06. The visit was followed by a gastronomic dinner in the historic old brewery room with a view on the huge copper brewing kettles. Wiels Café ensured us an exclusive ambiance and we were spoiled with culinary delights from the chef Arno Verbeke.
Régine Claeys, Area 06 Director
