Moeder! Oui dream till the end
Prouvost depicts Mother Meuse as a hybrid figure: half woman, half underwater creature, with a pregnant belly, tentacle arms and bronze birds nesting on her arms. Like a protective mother, she surrounds a mountain of Maas gravel, derived from the same subsoil from which the lake itself originated. The gravel refers to the past of mining, but takes on a new meaning here as a symbol of care, connection and anchoring in the landscape. With her tentacle, she presses a flag into the gravel mountain, with the words Oui dream till the end. That flag remains visible even when the lake floods at high tide. In this way, the artwork literally goes along with the dynamics of the environment.
The location was not chosen by chance. This spot is near ‘the end of Belgium’, a symbolic border point where nature, history and landscapes converge. Prouvost, herself from a Franco-Belgian border region, often plays with multilingualism and meaning shifting in her work. “Oui sounds like we, or ‘us’,” she explains. “The flag expresses the hope that we continue to dream together – until the end.”
The choice of a half-octopus figure fits within a recurring theme in Laure Prouvost’s oeuvre. An octopus has multiple hearts and no central brain. Its senses as well as its brain are located in its tentacles. He thinks by feeling and feels by thinking. By combining these characteristics with a human form, Prouvost invites us to look, think and empathise with other creatures differently.
