L’ombre n’a pas encore étendu son emprise sur nos espérances, 2015
Located below Place du Chapitre, and offering an exceptional view over the Sambre valley, the sentence “L’ombre n’a pas encore étendu son emprise sur nos espérances” (The shadows haven’t conquered our hopes yet) can be found in the Martinet. The 17-metre long neon LED structure by Djos Janssens for Fluide, powerfully occupies the space and cleverly transforms the view over the medieval town and its ramparts, while destabilising and disorienting viewers as soon as they enter Thuin. By associating the sentence with graphics, a material and a colour range, Djos Janssens causes an imbalance to appear between appearance and reality. An advertising and trade device turned into a narrative device to produce meaning, neon is part of everyone’s history, it evokes the human condition, its strengths and its weaknesses. The colour yellow, a reference to the sun that brightens the universe and gives life on earth, appears in opposition to the sentence and its location on the north side of the rock. Visible day and night, like a metaphor for time, this assertion reminds us of the town’s original desire to ‘protect’ itself and question its challenges and wishes for the future. It is up to each person to question what they see and decipher this new symbolic construction in the town’s landscape.
