Passage III (Next Gen)
Emma van der Put (due in 2025)
HD video
Passage III (Next Gen) (2025) is the final part of the Passage trilogy. In this film the focus lies on the European district of Brussels. Mid-19th century, a group of representatives of the Brussels political and financial circles acquired these grounds, that are located at the periphery of the city, as an extension of the municipal territory. From the 20th century onwards, several European Union organizations began to take up residence in this part of the city. Vast acres of office buildings were built to serve as conference, meeting and office spaces for the European institutions.
The European district in Brussels is largely comprised of impenetrable architecture with opaque, mirroring glass facades. Only the names, brands and quotes on banners, billboards and window decals speak of the different corporate political entities that inhabit this area. Apart from the visual language produced by the political institutions, the signs and marks of passers-by are strongly present in this area. The voices of protesters that regularly flare up and then fade out, echo through the streets via remnants of protest signages, stickers and graffiti.
As with the earlier Passage works, the film Passage III (Next Gen) looks into the specific usage of the visual language that can be found within this public space and how it reveals certain wishes and desires surrounding our relationship to past, present and future. In the other films, the sites seem to be more focussed on modeling their relationship to the past, where as in the European district a different temporal conversation is unfolding.
The exclamations of protest that are present in the streets speak about what should be changed in the here and now. They are voices of critique, where as the visual language used by the political institutions appears to be unshaken, speaking with a calm and soothing voice across the many statements of anger, fear and turmoil, by projecting images of an open and mouldable future.
