A ROOM WITH THE WORD GHOST INSIDE            

A room with the word ghost inside focuses on the image of the ghost and the idea of haunting as a way of thinking around writing, storytelling- and reading.

Words, like no other medium, can summon something that was not there before: a ghost image of the past, an imaginary future, or something else entirely. They open a place for interpretation and speculation. While reading, an image is formed, a ghostly presence growing in the room that previously seemed to contain nothing besides you and the pages of the book you hold.

Hereby, words and stories carry the possibility to shape the way we experience our surroundings: saying a place is haunted will make us feel uneasy when we’re there, maybe even scared to walk around alone at night. At the same time: name the ghost you thought to see too profusely, and it will transform back into a linen sheet again.

It felt almost inevitable to work around the idea of the ghost in a place like De Ateliers. When working and spending time here, it’s nearly impossible not to be aware of all the residents that went before you. The building constantly reminds you of them, in the shape of stains on the floor, the uneven walls, the creaking of the doors. For the past two years, I’ve been a guest here as well, haunting the spaces in a way, leaving my own traces.

In A room with the word ghost inside the space is filled with texts in various shapes and forms, some of them covered in shadows. As if they’ve been waiting in the dark corners of a room at night. They all try to both summon the idea of an elsewhere, or of someone else, as well as to change the experience of the room you’re in, and to make you, the reader, into the one that haunts it.