The Second Self: A Masterclass by Vincent Meessen

Vincent Meessen invites the participants — and you, as an observer — to follow a shared narrative path through a sequence of 12 evocative images drawn from Benjamin’s text The Second Self: A New Year’s Story for Contemplation.

Each participant will prepare a carefully composed static shot in response to one of the following prompts:

The path that you wanted to take
The letter that you wanted to write
The man that you wanted to rescue
The seat that you wanted to occupy
The woman that you wanted to follow
The word that you wanted to hear
The door that you wanted to open
The costume that you wanted to wear
The question that you wanted to pose
The hotel room that you wanted to have
The book that you wanted to read
The opportunity that you wanted to seize

These images, strung together in sequence, will serve as the foundation for a collectively devised visual story.

The masterclass is open to the public throughout the day. If you’re curious to witness how a narrative is born from images, ideas, and collaborative exchange, you’re warmly welcome to attend as an observer. You’ll get an intimate glimpse into the creative process, guided by one of contemporary cinema’s most thoughtful practitioners.

Vincent Meessen (born 1971 in Baltimore, USA, lives and works in Brussels) operates at the crossroads of contemporary art, moving images and research.

His artistic work is woven from a constellation of characters, gestures, and signs that maintain a polemical relation to the writing of history and the westernization of imaginaries.

Meessen is a founding member of various alliances including Universal Embassy (2001-2005), Potential Estate (2005-2011) and Jubilee -platform for artistic research and production. With “Personne et les autres”, a collective exhibition at the Belgian Pavilion  of the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), he has represented Belgium with ten invited artists from four continents. Other biennale participations include Cuenca Biennale, Biennale de Dakar, Berlin Biennale, São Paulo Bienal, Chicago Architecture Biennial, Biennale de Lubumbashi, Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse; Shanghai Biennale, Taipei Biennale. His films have been screened at film festivals including Berlinale, New York Film Festival, IFFR, IDFA, Hotdocs, FID and Fespaco.His work has been the subject of solo/duo exhibitions most recently at CIVA, Brussels (2023); Mu.Zee, Oostende, (2021) ; The Power Plant, Toronto (2019); Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal (2018); Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris (2018).