Platform Sessions #2 Ruud Gielens

The Camp David Accords and their disastrous consequences for peace in the Middle East form the starting point of Ruud Gielens' doctoral research. From documentary material, he investigates, both politically and socially, the decades following the peace treaty concluded in 1979 between Egypt and Israel after a 30-year conflict. The aim of his research is not only a performative or theatrical reflection but also an attempt to create an ontological space that contains different layers of meaning and that at the same time, offers one story, one experience.

Ruud Gielens' ambition is to build a peace museum in Brussels dedicated to
'Those brave white men who offered their services to create peace worldwide'. A peace museum that focuses on the efforts made by the leaders of the western world to create global 'peace'.

The project itself is multi-layered. Personal stories are interwoven with rumors, facts with fiction. The material comes from personal research and from interviews with individuals who have somehow been the victims of these Western attempts to create peace. The Peace Treaty / The Museum of Peace is a project that focuses on 'broken dreams' and wants to create strength on a social level through the use of rumors in a time when reality and fiction are difficult to separate because they are 'superimposed' political and economic imbalances.

It is a project that questions what myth and what reality is. Focusing on the illusion that 'our' leaders have created, that they can change the course of history by intervening in conflicts that at first sight, they have nothing to do with. In this presentation, Ruud Gielens will explain his project on the basis of the source material, such as films and photos. The public is asked to think along and to comment...

Ruud Gielens is an actor, director and theater teacher. He earned his spurs at home and abroad with work for, among others, Luk Perceval, KVS, the Berlin Schaubühne and Theater Antigone. Diversity is a central theme in Gielens ’oeuvre. Within the RITCS in Brussels, he is co-responsible for the training of young theater directors where he supervises workshops and graduation projects in the Bachelor's degree program.

Platform Sessions offer doctoral students in the Arts the opportunity to show their research process to an audience at the crossroads between art and science.

The Arts Platform forms the joint research environment of the VUB and the Schools of Arts of the EhB, the environment in which doctorates in the arts of excellent quality are delivered.