A monu­men­tal video work fol­lows the trail of a snail on a string bow whi­le the music of Igor Stravinsky resounds (at a slo­wer speed).

A gar­den snail takes cen­ter sta­ge in Anri Sala’s film If and Only If. The came­ra cap­tu­res the snail’s slow, deli­be­ra­te jour­ney in what unfolds as a ​“road movie”, char­ting its pro­gress from the base to the tip of vio­list Gérard Caussé’s bow as he per­forms Igor Stravinsky’s Elegy for vio­la solo. Typically las­ting under five minu­tes, this two-part com­po­si­ti­on is exten­ded to nine minu­tes and 47 seconds, tail­ored to the snail’s pace, sub­ver­ted by the inter­ac­ti­on bet­ween the musi­cian and the ani­mal. To achie­ve this, this tra­ver­sal emu­la­tes a con­ce­a­led dia­lo­gue bet­ween the two melo­dic voi­ces of the com­po­si­ti­on, which at times intertwi­ne, diver­ge, or sepa­ra­te, intro­du­cing pau­ses and move­ments of encou­ra­ge­ment that align with the snail’s gra­du­al climb. The ele­gy con­clu­des only when the snail com­ple­tes its ascent. Projected on a lar­ge sca­le, the inti­ma­te, tac­ti­le bond bet­ween the maes­tro and the snail is mag­ni­fied, cre­a­ting a poig­nant duet. This mes­me­ri­sing col­la­bo­ra­ti­on invi­tes vie­wers to embra­ce still­ness and savour the art of slo­wing down.

Since 2002, the STUK arts cen­tre has been hou­sed in a buil­ding in Naamsestraat that was then cal­l­ed the Arenberg Institute. This eclec­tic buil­ding, desig­ned by archi­tect Vincent Lenertz, was built by Duke Engelbert Marie of Arenberg and his mother Maria Eleonora of Arenberg. In 1907, they dona­ted a con­si­de­ra­ble sum of money to the University of Leuven to erect a new buil­ding for tea­ching and research in che­mistry. The inau­gu­ra­ti­on of this buil­ding took pla­ce on 9 May 1909, when the seven­ty-fifth anni­vers­a­ry of the re-esta­blis­hed Catholic University was also cele­bra­ted. The buil­ding was not qui­te rea­dy at that time. Only after World War I could the labo­ra­to­ries and class­rooms be com­mis­si­o­ned. Once the che­mists had all moved to the sci­en­ce cam­pus in Heverlee in the late 1970s, the search for a new use for the buil­ding began. After a tho­rough reno­va­ti­on bet­ween 1999 and 2002 by Dutch archi­tect Willem Jan Neutelings, arts cen­tre STUK moved in. Meanwhile, the com­plex has alrea­dy under­go­ne a second tho­rough reno­va­ti­on (2021−2023).

Text: Liesbet Nys (KU Leuven)