“The first dino bone, was not seen as a dino bone, but just as a very big bone.”
- Siemen Van Gaubergen

Commissioned by Artefact: Alone Together, Siemen Van Gaubergen created the installation Was je maar hier. The complete text of the neon installation reads ‘Was je maar hier, ik wou dat je hier was, je mag je hier wassen’*. Van Gaubergen explains: ‘You always read a text with a certain expectation. This time however, the last sentence reveals an ambiguity. It triggers you to start again and puts the text in an entirely new perspective. Loneliness and seclusion also have that ambiguity in them. Sartre once said ‘If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.’ The loneliness and the community in which you live always go together. One cannot be separated from the other.’

Courtesy the artist
*A translation is quite impossible, apologies to our non-Dutch speaking audience
2020 - neon installation - 18x464cm
Artefact commission

Image credit: Siemen Van Gaubergen - Was je maar hier Mock-up © Siemen Van Gaubergen

Siemen Van Gaubergen
°1991, Leuven, Belgium

Siemen Van Gaubergen is a Belgian visual artist, residing in the Cas-co studios in Leuven since 2018. In his practice, he investigates contemporary visual culture and the way in which we understand images. Narratives of all kind form the multilayered background against which his images take shape. In the creation of his work, he additionally makes use of existing or newly created photographs, videostills, instruction sheets, language and graphic signs. The result is often complex, and demands to be viewed and reviewed, deciphered. Siemen Van Gaubergen received a Master in Graphic Storytelling from LUCA School of Arts, Brussels.