Research and Methodology 

"Lettres D'Amour de Marolles" is a project that was created in context of a working atelier of The Royal Institute of Theatre Sound and Cinema in Brussels. A group of 9 students from different disciplines were invited to create something in the neighbourhood of the Marollen in the art space Hectolitre. Hectolitre is an artist residency and an experimental art space that is very unique in itself but also embodies the soul of The Marollen and The Place de Jeu Balle/Vossenplein. The central square is a place for the daily flea market that is the beating heart of the neighbourhood, with lots of diverse social groups from all different backgrounds. As a group, we decided to do our artistic research on this square, interlacing between the people and the objects. On the market we found one banana box filled with Love Letters between Alain and Marianne and this inspired us to continue our research on love letters and micro-histories through interactive writing. Because we wanted to create a bond with the neighbourhood; social connection, conversation and the action of writing played a crucial role in our research. The fascination of lost memories and lost "histoires d'amour", turned into the need to collect and archive these intangible memories of people today. The Love Letter has died alongside technology and we wanted to get back in touch with a tradition that goes in different tangible (letter) or intangible (conversation, music) forms. We took a table and put it in between the market tables, and invited people that passed by to write a love letter with us. At first they were confused and asked what would happen to their letters.  We decided we wanted to honor them, archive them and then let them be read by people in the neighborhood. 

Made for Transversaal Atelier by RITCS with Yanni Loenders, Noé Dekeukelaere, Willem Loobuyck, Fons Dumont, Cosette Heuberger, Milan Claeys, Jorre Aelbrecht, Nash Vandevelde, Nora Festjens and Janis Goethals. Atelier guided by Julia Clever.