Bruegel

Bruegel is Lisaboa Houbrechts’ kaleidoscopic portrait of Pieter Brueghel the Elder and the times in which he created the figure of Mad Meg. She takes the viewer on a journey through time. She is derided as a butch hag because she steals objects for hell. But what if, rather than stealing those objects, she is trying to rescue them? Lisaboa Houbrechts creates a tale with those lost objects as the common thread.

Lisaboa Houbrechts: “Stories from history are behind closed doors. They have been manipulated, twisted, forgotten or reduced to a clear morality. In Bruegel I build a large web around a number of imaginary objects. They were a relic from the Low Countries, an area that was plagued by religious conflict, famine, and the slow arrival of the Little Ice Age in those times. This way, I look at the creation of Mad Meg and Bruegel’s work from a specific angle, emphasising the relationship between the personal, the political and the Dutch Golden Age – an era that rises like a tidal wave and dramatically crashes back down.”

trailer Bruegel - Lisaboa Houbrechts from Toneelhuis on Vimeo.