Ma Bellegique

INTRODUCTION BY LUCAS RACASSE | 2019 *“My Belgium. My beautiful Belgium. ‘Dear country of my childhood,’ I feel like saying, true to my roots: I love you. There, I said it. This book is dedicated to you. A surreal land where pata(physics) is taught in kindergarten, you’ll always make me dream—or have nightmares (same difference)—but you’ve never disappointed me. With you, everything changes all the time, yet nothing really changes. You cling to your sacred singularity. Sometimes to the point of absurdity. Because yes, your system is a gas factory, where fries are blue, your traditions are cast in chocolate, and your mindset thoroughly soaked in mayo—or samurai sauce, or brazil. Yes, your heart is as warm and generous as a Liège waffle, and yes, at times as hard as a bottle of Gueuze, but often filled with raspberry-flavored gum arabic. And even if things regularly turn sour, your ‘intestination-al’ conflicts remain a source of inspiration. Always delirious. Insane. Preposterous. Mind-blowing. You’re my dealer. My dealer of absurd ideas and poetry. Your mountains are Russian—or Polish. Your plains are sub-Saharan. Your beaches sometimes as cold as the poles. Your roads, like hell, are paved with good intentions. Your landscapes feel like safari, and your flow even spills into the Seine. And yes, your past is sometimes darker than 100% cacao. Yet nothing stops you, because you’re a one-of-a-kind invention all on your own. Like a badass prototype no one ever managed to replicate. The blueprints were probably lost somewhere in the meanders of your Magrittian administration. And let’s not forget the King, who must always be proper and a guarantor of liberty, because first and foremost, it’s your name we sing. ‘Belgium is a pleasure and must remain so.’ There’s only one way to love you, dear country: madly. This series, “Ma BelleGique”, began with Jo Dekmine, at the dawn of the 21st century, when he roped me into one of his graphic adventures he so loved to throw me into: Le Théâtre des Doms. The new theater of Belgium’s French Community in Avignon, run for over a decade by Philippe Gromber and later Isabelle Jans. I was tasked with designing the festival posters and showcasing the performing arts from French-speaking Belgium to the… French. And who better than a turncoat to waffle their faces? For around ten years, I twisted Belgian symbols every which way. Then in 2013, Hugues and Chantal decided to present a retrospective of this work at their Micro Museum of the Fry in Brussels (a sacred spot). Some published pieces, others unseen. To pull them out of their original context, I decided to add captions—mini titles. That’s when I realized that the space between image and text was, in fact, my creative playground. With a little blue book that accompanied the exhibition of some twenty visual poems, Ma BelleGique was born. And, naturally, a friendship too—with this surprising place and its lovable people. So very Belgian. In the years that followed that show, I kept writing and sketching these visual poems in notebooks, on scraps of paper, on restaurant napkins… as ideas came. This book gathers my ninety favorites, created between 2002 and 2019. But careful: packed with cabbage, chocolate, mussels, fries, cuberdons, and other caloric delights, it’s meant to be enjoyed without moderation—like any good beer—just a few pages at a time. To avoid digestive issues and occasional bouts of nausea. ‘Long live Belgium, goddammit,’ as one would say, and the other would reply: ‘Amai! What a mess!’”