Heppeneert says goodbye
16 September 2022, a 25-metre-long sand sculpture with the words SAVE OUR SOULS rose in the winter bed of the Meuse in Heppeneert. The sculpture was created as a reference to the high water of 2021, as a senseless cry for help. Today it has come full circle. The river takes over, the artwork made of Maas sand returns to its source. Many villagers, as well as cyclists and walkers, had taken the work to their hearts. Over the past two years, they enthusiastically shared images with artist Maarten Inghels about the evolution of the work.
“From a distance, I got a picture of how the work was changing. It was very moving to see how nature took over. Overgrown by plants or with a bird’s nest in one of the letters. Until I got the news today that the water was rising.”
Washing water as dream ending
Artist Maarten Inghels could not have dreamed of a more beautiful ending. A fragile work that was meant to survive the forces of nature for four months lasted more than two years.
Maarten Inghels: “The image I was shown this morning, with three letters still visible just above the surface of the water, humbles me. You see we as humans can be haughty, but in the end nature takes back with devastating force. At the same time, it satisfies me that nature takes it back and we did not have to bring this to an end ourselves. The new year thus brings a clean blank page.”
Background information about SAVE OUR SOULS
Maarten Inghels (b. 1988) did not choose this spot in Heppeneert by chance. In 2021, the Meuse threatened to flow over the embankment of the Limburg pilgrimage town here. The emergency services reinforced the dyke with sandbags, which could just about hold. So the SOS that we know from books or movies as the distress signal of shipwrecked sailors came very close here. Now, from the same embankment in the winter bed of the river, you could see a 25-metre-long sculpture in sand: SAVE OUR SOULS. A reference to the high water of 2021. More than that, for Inghels, it is a pointless cry for help in these times of increasing floods and summer droughts. The fact that the artwork can flood or wash away is essential in this. In doing so, the writer emphasises our vulnerability to the immense power of water. But it is also a reference to the pilgrimage site and church nearby, where soul salvation is central.
Follow the project Kunst aan de Maas via www.kunstaandemaas.be
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