 
"To represent someone or even something has now become an endeavour as complex and as problematic as an asymptote, with consequences for certainty and decidability as fraught with difficulties as can be imagined".
Edward Said, Representing the colonised: Anthropology's Interlocutors', Critical Inquiry, Winter 1989, v.15, no. 2, page 206.
"About this room, which was plunged in utter darkness, I knew everything, I had entered into it, I bore it within me, I made it live, with a life that is not life, but which is stronger than life, and which no force in the world vanquish".
Maurice Blanchot, L'arrêt de mort, Gallimard, Coll. L'Imaginaire, 1948, page 124.
"The creation of concrete forms, in which one can come to contemplate the Divine, is the very reason for the existence of Art. The material in the form created by the artist, and the creative process itself, are aspects of the feminine principle. The maker must play two roles: as a passive recipient to the idea which is conceived and an active agent towards that which is to be born".
Laleh Bakhtiar, Sufi, the Gathering the Opposites, Thames and Hudson Press, UK, 1976.
The Metragram Series originates in my interest in the history of European visual representation of Non-Europeans, ranging from ethnological images to art works, which in fact often tend to mingle into one single and puzzling result, between legitimate inspiration and ostensible materialism. My recurrent appearance in the image with the "subject" of the work is aimed at inscribing what is European in me within the context of the representation of the other, here epitomized as a woman, and her womb in particular. It is obviously a subjective representation. If formal and iconographic conventions in European art inevitably affected how non-European were pictured, then the Metagram series would seem to foster a backwards history, moving from the seemingly realistic to the more fanciful, idealized, or even transparently unrealistic; however, always remaining non-fictitious. I do not forget that any representation of the Other is an underlying attempted control (especially in regard to colonial and imperialist image making history).
I sometimes think of James Ensor, Hieronymus Bosch, Arnold Böcklin, Maurice Blanchot or Werner Tübke.
Allegory, the series starts with my mother, in the house she built in Belgium.
 A selection of works representative of the series:
Metragram on a Walloon woman, Val d'or, Pecrot, Grez-Doiceau, Wallonia (Belgium/2005) description
Metragram on a Scandinavian woman, wilderness of Kalbjärga, Fårö island, Gotland (Sweden/2005) description
Metragram on a Roman woman, garden of the Villa Borghese, Roma (Italy/2005) description
Metragram on a Nippon woman, Shonben Yokocho, Shinjuku red light district, Kabukicho, Tokyo (Japan/2005) description
Metragram on a Kinh woman, Hanoi (Socialist Republic of Vietnam/2006) description
Metragram on a Naxi woman, Camelia Tree of 10.000 blossoms, Yufeng Lamasery, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, Yunnan (China/2006) description
Metragram on a Shi'ah Muslim woman, Tehran (Islamic Republic of Iran/2006) description
Metragram on a Persian woman, Mount Damawand, Mountain Range of Alburz (Islamic Republic of Iran/2006) description
Metragram on a Mizrahi Iraqi Jewish woman, outskirts of the village of Kiriat Anavim, Jehuda mountains (Israel/2006) description
Metragram on a Finn woman, slash-and-burn area, Ollila farm, hillside of Ukko-Koli, Northern Karelia (Finland/2006) description
Metragram on a Karelian woman, Pyötikön tsasouna, Nurmes, Northern Karelia (Finland/2006) description
Metragram on an Anatolian woman, hamam of the ancient Sinop penitentiary, shores of the Black Sea (Turkey/2006) description
Metragram on an Arab woman, neighborhood of Zamalek, Gezira Island, Cairo (Egypt/2006) description
Metragram on an Israeli woman, Gardens of Gethsemane, foot of the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem (Israel/2006) description
Metragram on a Palestinian woman, Separation Wall, village of Ras el-Amoud & Abu-Dis, West Bank (Palestine-Israel/2006) description
Metragram on a Sepharadi Lybian Jewish woman, Kfar Vitkin, Heffer Valley, outskirts of Tel-Aviv (Israel/2006) description
Metragram on a Kamikawa Ainu woman, Hokumon-cho, Asahikawa, Hokkaido (Japan/2006) description
Metragram on an Ibaloi woman, Timbac burial caves, Kabayan, Northern Luzon Cordillera (The Philippines/2007) description
Metragram on a Lalec Pinatubo Aeta woman, foothills of Mount Pinatubo, San Felipe, Zambales (The Philippines/2007) description
Metragram on a Sino-Filipino woman, Monument to the Manila Massacre, Intramuros, Manila (The Philippines/2007) description
Metragram on a Tagalog woman, 18th avenue, Quezon City, Manila (The Philippines/2007) description
Metragram on an Austronesian woman, red-light district of Cubao, Manila (The Philippines/2007) description
Metragram on a Sino-Burmese woman, atelier of Phyu Mon and Chan Aye, Ba Han Township, Yangon (Union of Myanmar/2007) description
Metragram on a Bamar woman, 14th Street, Lanmadaw Township, Yangon (Union of Myanmar/2007) description
Metragram on a Western woman, Bloomberg headquarters, Lexington Avenue, Manhattan, New York (United States of America/2007) description
Metragram on a Sino-American woman, The Kimlau War Memorial, Chatham Square, Chinatown, New York (United States of America/2007) description
Metragram on a Druze woman, Souk el Ghareb, Mount Lebanon (Lebanese Republic/2007) description
Metragram on a Lebanese Armenian woman, Jehtawi, Ashrafieh, Beirut (Lebanese Republic/2007) description
Metragram on a Levantine woman, Moses Memorial Church, Mount Nebo (Hashemite kingdom of Jordan/2007) description
Metragram on a Betsileo woman, village of Isorana, region of High Matsiatra, Fianarantsoa province (Republic of Madagascar/2007) description
Metragram on a Kashubian woman, village of Łątczińskô Hëta, Kashubia region, Pomerania voivodeship (Republic of Poland/2007) description
Metragram on a Polish Jewish Ashkenazi woman, Auschwitz Birkenau extermination camp, Oświęcim, Malopolska Province (Republic of Poland/2007) description
Metragram on a Silesian woman, Pomnik Powstańców Śląskich, Katowice, Silesian Voivodeship (Republic of Poland/2007) description
Metragram on a Montenegrin woman, Bulevar Sv. Petra Cetinjskog, Podgorica (Montenegro/2007) description
Metragram on a Mesoamerican woman, Arenal Volcano, Alajuela Province (Costa Rica/2008) description
Metragram on a Garífuna woman, Village of Orinoco, Laguna de Perlas, Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur (Nicaragua/2008) description
Metragram on a Afro-Miskito woman, Corn Island, Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur (Nicaragua/2008) description
Metragram on a Tahitian woman, ruins of an abandoned ClubMed hotel, Moorea, The Windward Islands, Society Islands (French Polynesia/2008) description
Metragram on a Te Arawa Māori woman, Breaker Bay, Wellington, Polynesia, Remote Oceania (New Zealand/2008) description
Metragram on an Indo-Malay Muslim woman, Section 9, Shah Alam, Selangor State (Peninsular Malaysia/2008) description
Metragram on a Japanese American woman, Kitanomaru Park, Tōkyō Imperial Palace, Tōkyō (Japan/2008) description
Metragram on a Galician woman, Monastery of San Pedro de Rocas, Esgos, Ourense, Galicia (Spain/2008) description
Metragram on a Teochew woman, Tai Kok Tsui, Mong Kok, Kowloon (Hong Kong/2008) description
Metragram on a Slavic woman, Kalmakachou gorge, Issik Kul lake, Tian Shan range (Kyrghystan/2008) description
Metragram on a Kyrgyz woman, cemetery of the village of Koi Tash, Chui region (Kyrghystan/2008) description
Metragram on a Cantonese woman, Libreria Borges Institute for Contemporary Art, Haizhu district, Guangzhou (China/2008) description
Metragram on a expatriated woman, grave of Piet Mondrian, Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn (United States of America/2009) description
Metragram on a Japanese woman, Kyojima, Sumida ward, Tokyo (Japan/2009) description
Metragram on a Tswana woman, shores of the Lotlamoreng Dam, Mafikeng, North West Province (South Africa/2009) description
Metragram on an Okinawaian woman, Makishi, Naha, Okinawa (Japan/2009) description
Metragram on an Ryukyuan woman, Shikina Cemetery, Naha, Okinawa (Japan/2009) description
Metragram on an Kabyle woman, medlar orchads, Campagne Semmar, Birkhadem, Algiers, Maghreb, (Algeria/2009) description
Metragram on a Syrian Druze woman, Jaramanah, Rif Dimashq Governorate (Syria/2009) description
Metragram on an Istrian woman, Sv. Marije na Škrilinah church, village of Beram, Central Istria (Croatia/2009) description
Metragram on an Illyrian woman, village of Krnica, Eastern Istrian peninsula (Croatia/2009) description
Metragram on a Croat woman, ruins of Salona, Solin, Dalmatia, Dinaric Alps (Croatia/2009) description
Metragram on a Black woman, Faso kanu, Bamako (Mali/2009) description
Metragram on a Flemish woman, Val d'or, Pecrot, Grez-Doiceau, Wallonia (Belgium/2010) description
Metragram on a Yemeni woman, Beet Ma'yad, Sana'a (Yemen/2010) description
Metragram on a Bangalorean woman, Rabindranath Tagore's abandonned greenhouse, Shantiniketan, West Bengal (India/2010) description
Metragram on a Dravidian woman, Ashram of Kankalitala, Bolpur, Birbhum-Murshidabad, West Bengal (India/2010) description
Metragram on a foreign woman, College of Art and craft, Patna, State of Bihar (India/2010) description
Metragram on a Sunny Muslim French Moroccan woman, Nideranven (Grand Duchy of Luxembourg/2010) description
Metragram on her absence, lieu-dit of "Paradise", bossut gottechain (Belgium/2010) description
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