One Day I Will Make The Onion Cry

During One Day I Will Make the Onion Cry, you will have the opportunity to participate in a one-on-one ritual by and with Barbara Raes for a week. In her practice Beyond the Spoken, Raes, artistic director at NTGent, has been creating tailor-made rituals for years. Hidden forms of loss are given a place in this way. Now, for the first time, Raes is integrating her private practice into a theatrical context.

One Day I Will Make the Onion Cry gives space and form to the grief that accompanies solastalgia, the loss of something that has not yet been lost. The grief is already presenting itself while the real farewell has yet to come.

Together with visual artist and BERLIN scenographer Manu Siebens, Raes is transforming various spaces in De Expeditie into a poetic landscape in which the connection becomes tangible between the overproduction of onions, tears for what will change, and the interpretation of our tears. A place where you can embrace grief for what will one day disappear.

One Day I Will Make the Onion Cry is a creation in the context of YouTurn. Raes and Siebens give the onion machine from the BERLIN performance Land’s End (2011) a new life.

The renovated installation will be open to the public from 4 to 10 October 2024. During the day, it will be the setting and route for a one-on-one ritual with Barbara Raes. At other times, Victoria Deluxe will further explore the questions and emotions that the installation evokes.