Filip Van Dingenen: Zoonation, 2002-2005

2005

For approximately three years, Filip Van Dingenen ventured into a quest for animals that were transferred from a closed down zoo in Zwartberg, Belgium to other parks worldwide. Moreover, it was an artistic search for the way zoos are constructed as fake habitats and as theme parks with different functions: science, education, preservation, tourism and downright fun and escapism.

I followed the “Zoonation” project closely, published an interview with the artist as early as 2003 (“Met Filip Van Dingenen op expeditie. Reizen om te creëren” in: Gonzo Circus, n° 55, Feb.-Ma. 2003, pp. 46-49) and gave some theoretical input when asked. The final result was a beautiful book published by MER. Paper Kunsthalle as well as a nice website (www.zoonation.be) with photos, maps, drawings and reminiscences of the travels made by Van Dingenen. It was designed by Martijn Vogelaers and I wrote a short biography for it, which can be found below, as the website is, unfortunately, now offline. It was also published in the exhibition brochure Filip Van Dingenen: Bobby’s heaven, 7Hours Haus, Berlin, 2005.

American poet William Carlos Williams once declared: “A new world is only a new mind”. Already with his earliest artistic experiences, young Belgian Filip Van Dingenen (born 1975, Diest) has set out to venture into new worlds by producing alternative mindsets, never limiting himself to one specific medium. Van Dingenen’s creative modes of consciousness can consist of dream-like states, situations and travels during which the artist acts like a Baudelairean flâneur, quests to locations which are ideal urban fantasies or to locations which are ideal urban fantasies. In other cases, it involves imaginary personae, or the mind-altering use of psychedelic substances.

Changing personalities has become a favourite strategy since his student years at the mixed-media atelier of Jan Carlier at the PHL Institute (Dept. of Fine Art) in Hasselt. For instance, as Billy Bluebird Van Dingenen became codirector of the public gallery PCBK (Hasselt) in 1998 at the side of King Fatso – an alter ego of collaborating artist Jethro Volders. Rather than keeping things organised at the institution, the two characters involved themselves in all kinds of hedonist exploits, turning the place into a haven of anarchic freedom.

Later, Billy Bluebird went on to selling imaginary travels to Utopia as a tour operator. These were in fact mental trips to an unspecified location which the travellers had to make up themselves. Van Dingenen provoked people into rediscovering their own fantasies, in this case by inviting them to partake in a satisfactory dream journey.

Moreover, the artist became aware of numerous locations that were in itself created like a dream, such as the city of Las Vegas, Disneyland, other theme parks, holiday resorts or zoos. While visiting environments such as these, he could enliven the aforementioned concept of the flâneur to the fullest at these examples of a new Eden. Several works about this subject matter, for instance the installation “Wie Gaat Er Mee Naar Cockagne?” [“Who would like to come along to Cockagne?“] (2000), evoke and emphasise the all-too-human feeling of longing to such places.

Eventually, in the case of the closure of a local Belgian zoo Van Dingenen found the perfect starting point to accumulate his favourite themes into a rhizomatic enterprise that still continues to expand: “Zoonation”. Once again, a new world was born.

The book can be bought at the website of MER. Paper Kunsthalle: http://www.merpaperkunsthalle.org/projects/view/205.