Daniël Robberechts x Jef Cornelis

Jef Cornelis did collaborate with few writers as intensely as he did with Daniël Robberechts, one of the most important representatives of post-war experimental prose in Flanders. Their collaboration began in 1976 with the television documentary Vlaanderen in vogelvlucht, for which Robberechts wrote the script. From a helicopter, it becomes clear to what extent the Flemish landscape had become an infrastructure landscape in the 1970s, with airports, highways, towers and factories. ​“What is happening to this landscape of ours?” Robberechts asks at the beginning of the film. Based on the belief that a landscape must be readable in order to inhabit it, he searches for a language that allows us to identify with this Flemish landscape.

In 1981, two more collaborations followed: De achterkamer and Na alle vlees: portret van een werkwijze. In the first, the Dutch artist Oscar de Wit visits Robberechts at home in Everbeek. We see Robberechts at work in his study, where his tiny handwriting is captured by a ​‘tele-board,’ a device that Cornelis had designed for this film. Robberechts talks at length about his writing process and views on literature. In Na alle vlees: portret van een werkwijze, we see Robberechts in the role of interviewer. He speaks with his good friend Jacq Vogelaar, the Dutch writer and essayist, about his recently published novel Alle vlees. Like two engineers in language, Robberechts and Vogelaar explore the completely idiosyncratic structure that makes up the book.

• Program by Flemish Review de la Poëzie

• Introduction by Mathijs Tratsaert

• In collaboration with Paard van Troje that will offer a discount on the diaries of Daniel Robberechts exclusively for this evening

• On November 11 at bookstore Out of Stock, Kasper Demeulemeester and Jakob Van den Broucke of T I C (Temporary Information Center) will make an issue of T I C on Robberechts, which will also be for sale at the screening.

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