Wrong Tape

I stumbled upon an exhibition today, with pieces of art all made from gaffa tape (duct tape).

It was in the main waiting hall at Brussels’ south station, Gare du Midi / Zuidstation, the one most horrible public building this side of Pyongyang. (No, sorry, I take that back; even the North Koreans couldn’t have come up with the idea of building a train station so as to look like a bunker and put in such an amount of lighting inside that you could be wearing night vision goggles and still not see a thing. But that’s beside the point).

There, I discovered when hovering around while waiting for a bus, they have set up an exhibition in the name of charity, with everything made from gaffa tape. Including a life-sized sculpture of a deer on crutches, a poignant argument in the debate on road safety for animals and people, I was led to understand.

I agree with those who keep writing on the forum “If you can’t fix it with Gaffa tape, you haven’t used enough” on Facebook, a forum where I am a proud member, that “Gaffa tape is the force: it has a dark side, and a light side, and it holds the universe together”, having been involved in music and sound engineering since I was so high. But art made from Gafa tape? Hrm.

But what occurred to me most was the fact that such an exhibition took place right here. In Brussels, of all places, I believe it would be more fitting to have an exhibition with pieces of art all made from Red Tape.