B-1010 for 2010 : this month, Les encastrés, a proposal by Agnès Geoffray (in : the Bulletin, September issue)

This month, we present a proposal by Agnès Geoffray(F).

It is a photograph entitled Les encastrés, 2005. The image has an immediate, direct appeal and lends itself to a variety of interpretations, depending on the context.
We chose it for be-DIX-TIEN as an effective visual translation of Belgium’s and Brussels’ tightly interwoven multiple identities : transnational, national, regional and cultural. After all, ours is a country where many of us have surnames stemming from the other cultural community — the one with which we are not officially affiliated and which we too often tend to regard as the opposite camp. Prominent politicians are among those who, sadly, sometimes seem oblivious to the history lesson inscribed in their very signature.
Geoffray’s image also helps us see that than any identity, whether individual or collective, is a construction, an ever-evolving work in progress. This is certainly and increasingly so in today’s Brussels, where opportunities abound to open ourselves to the ideas, languages and customs of others, and to learn and grow from them.
Very often, as here through the photographer’s lens, it is by taking a step back and looking from a healthy distance that we can more clearly appreciate the intertwined and rich relations with which we are sometimes at odds.