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Following such projects as By the Illuminator (2013, a site for meditative loneliness inside a drain pipe under a highway next to a river in Vilnius) or Secret Space in the National Gallery (2014, a hidden and inaccessible coffee-break room in Lithuania’s National Art Gallery) Serapinas has collaborated closely with Georges Uittenhout, M HKA’s chief technician, to identify hidden, forgotten and unused spaces in the museum. As a result, Serapinas has cut a hole in one of the walls in the exhibition halls on the ground floor, allowing the public to enter a narrow, long and very tall shaft.

In preparation for this time-consuming action, which adds no objects to the exhibition (if we don’t count some small alterations to the space made for reasons of health and safety) puts the museum itself on display as a place with secrets, Serapinas studied the history of the building and its immediate surroundings. The Antwerp South area was redeveloped in the 1870s and ’80s and was a transport hub with docks and a large railway station until the mid-1960s. Part of his visual research material (made available by the Heritage Library Hendrik Conscience) is published in the catalogue. (AK)