Eleven seconds: that is the average time we spend on a work of art. In 11 seconds, Charlotte Bouckaert and her audience watch one photograph for a long time: an exterior view of the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Charlotte Bouckaert is fascinated by photography. In her performances, she handles the camera in such a way that it is not the solidified photograph that gets our attention, but the action that precedes it. Or, as in 11 seconds, a photograph gets a new life in surprising stories.

On the stage is a work table with paper, scissors, paint, etc. The workshop of a bricoleur. A video camera projects what is happening on the table onto the back wall. The performer continuously manipulates the photo and makes our reading of the image shift.

For Charlotte Bouckaert, the photo of the Guggenheim Museum is the starting point of a playful exploration of our way of looking at art, of the relationship between art and reality, of the museum as an institution, of photography and transience, etc.
First and foremost, 11 seconds wants to be an ode: to art itself, to artists and to our laborious attempts to say something meaningful about art. 

Charlotte Bouckaert explores the boundaries between performance and visual art. For a while she was part of the collective Atelier Bildraum. Meanwhile she focuses back on her own practice, in which she, like a choreographer of the static image, tries to rediscover the amazement of looking in a playful and traditional way.

concept & performance Charlotte Bouckaert dramaturgy Bart Van den Eynde audio mix Benjamin Dousselaere original music Nicolas Roseeuw technique Christoph Donse
production Platform 0090 coproduction Toneelhuis, C-Takt with the support of Workspacebrussels thanks to Kunstenwerkplaats Pianofabriek, Zsenne Art Laboratory, De Grote Post Oostende with the support of the Flemisch Gouvernement