Les silences que j‘ai entendus / The silences I heard by Youssef Swatt‘s in the Art & History Museum in Brussels until 30.09.2025.
For an entire night, Belgian-Algerian rapper Youssef Swatt‘s wandered the museum alone, listening to the silent voices of the artworks, resulting in ten raw, calm, and powerful texts. At each stop, visitors are invited to sit, listen, read, and absorb, discovering an audio clip, video, photograph, or poem.
(1) Artistic image of Youssef Swatt‘s during his night in the museum. Photo: © Cyprien Delpire.
(2) ① The Heart Museum (mannequin with ex-voto, France, 19th century) “A strange atmosphere, a palpable break with the rest of the museum. […] This room also tells the story of a couple, a cardiologist [Noubar Boyadjian, 1917-1996] and his wife [Micheline Evrard, 1923-2019]. […] a tribute to the hearts that beat at the centre of everything.“
(3) ② Altarpiece of Saint George (Jan II Borman, 1493) “The endless hours of work frozen in wood […] One night would never have been enough to capture all the stories.”
(4) ③ Cihuateotl, goddess of women who died in childbirth (terracotta, 600/900 CE, El Zapotal, Veracruz, Mexico) “[…] according to belief, these women who died in childbirth followed the same path as men who fell in battle, becoming warriors in the afterlife. […] this goddess embodies a unique form of recognition for these women, who were continually invisible and died giving life.”
(5) ⑩ Statue of a falcon-headed God - Khonsu (quartzite, Karnak, Khonsu temple, late 18th Dynasty (1388/1298 BCE), reused in the Third Intermediate Period, 21st Dynasty (ca. 1045 BCE) “Khonsu is damaged. But Khonsu is still there. […] I look at him and remember how fragile our history is. Like a library full of knowledge that a single fire can reduce to ashes. All it takes is a match, a few seconds, to wipe out centuries.”
— translation from French of excerpts from texts by Youssef Swatt’s
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