THE GOOD LIFE (2009)

The Good Life was a project commissioned by the Arnolfini Art Center in Bristol (UK). For the occasion Vermeir & Heiremans produced a film and a site-specific installation. The artists proliferated an idea of restructuring Arnolfini conceptually and in rhyme with the ongoing re-generation projects in the city.

In collaboration with the renowned architects office 51N4E, they developed a new design and use for the Arnolfini building with which the site will no longer be an arts centre but a residential building that embraces art in its style.

The exhibition introduced the new model and the future of the place to Arnolfinis audience through a video and sound installation, additionally through embracing the exhibition space of Arnolfini as a component. The first floor hosted a large-scale double screen video installation where the project is introduced in detail. Carly Wijs, acting as a real estate agent in the video, guides the potential buyers / residents in the premises of the building while introducing the possible usage of the space in modern living. The physical space constructed in the film is a blending of three different contemporary art museums in different countries as one single location.

The Good Life (2009) considers how strategic foresight has become part of the socio-economic plan for art institutions in the twenty-first century, locating these institutions as central in the regeneration of cities. The real estate agent guiding the tour adopts a verbal style that veils any overt notion of gentrification, while conjuring up impressions of aspiration and opulence, a lifestyle fantasy projected onto an empty shell. Incorporating high-gloss brochures and a maquette of the extraordinary building designed by the renowned architecture office 51N4E, The Good Life adopts an approach that critically over-identifies with its subject matter to the point of adopting all its rhetorical forms. The Keynesian thesis of pumping steroids into the demand is taken to an near-delusional aesthetic plane through generating unattainable desires for the individual. (Kaleidoscope 10, Current Account by Nav Haq)

This video installation also exists in a 17' single screen version, which was presented at different venues world wide.
Preview single screen version on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/12509284