TEXT SCULPTURES AT THE BERGSINGEL ROTTERDAM
R'uit magazine, march 2005 by Sandra Smets
Since the beginning of this year are two text-art pieces of Marcelle van Bemmel to be seen in the facing of the Bergsingel (canal, boulevard). The instruction was to create a text as a "mirror of the past" of the boulevard. She questioned this immediately. Why refer to the past when it is still clearly tangible? With its old buildings and large trees it seems as if the area has always been like this. But at a closer look much has changed indeed. Many houses have been added, waterbasins are replaced, traffic has expanded. Now the boulevard has become a kind of distorted mirror of the past, and you would wish to step through it to see the old time. But to which extent is such a "mirror" reality? To which extent correspondents our idea of the past with how it really was? With her art piece Van Bemmel wanted to make a mirror of the future as well. She created two lines of text, a play with language, of four words each, which connected past, present and future. People who pass by can look each time whether the words can be read in the watermirror, depending on the weather and wind. Otherwise they may have more luck tomorrow.
nu was toen later - later is nu toen
now was then later - later now is then