This summer the local authority in the East Flemish city of Ghent will install three blocks of prefab toilets in order to assess the need for public conveniences in the city At a later stage the scheme will be extended to cover districts of Ghent outside the city centre permanent public WCs will be constructed in the city’s Citadelpark and at a location in Ghent’s student district the Overpoort This summer Ghent City Council plans to provide three prefab blocks containing public toilets at locations where it gets busy during periods of good weather The news that public conveniences will be provided by the City of Ghent this summer came from Alderman Hafsa El-Bazioui (green) who was responding to a question from the Christan democrat councillor Stijn De Roo The prefab toilet blocks will be installed at the Houtdok Once the summer is over an evaluation will take place and it will be decided whether the toilets should become a permanent fixture The city authorities want to make public toilets accessible to all Mr El-Bazioui told VRT News that “It is important that everyone in our city is able to use the toilet without having to pay to consume something” "Additional funding has been made available and preliminary studies are currently ongoing with a view to installing permanent toilets in the Citadel Park In addition to the plans for public toilets in the centre of Ghent the city authorities also plan to place a block of prefab toilets in Sint-Amandsberg the existing public toilets in the Groene Valleipark in Sint-Denijs-Westerem will be given a revamp additional public toilets opened in the suburb of Oostakker The result of that interaction between intuition and examination is something that is at once very familiar and strange one experiences an almost unbridgeable distance Do you create that deliberately?Borremans: I realise that my work both attracts and repels then that distance would be in that painting too I subscribe to the idea that the painter depicts nature and in so doing shows his own soul; but I don’t depict nature I paint in the way that is the right way for me to present a particular image I wouldn’t know who I am.Is that need there at the moment when you decide to start a painting?Borremans: Each painting comes into being in a different way I don’t work systematically: I must always have a reason to paint something A work of art must always arise from a sort of necessity that I can’t make more works than I do and that my works become expensive I don’t want to become a factory; I don’t work to do people a favour – and I’ve no interest in a yacht in Saint Tropez I have a fine platform on which I can show my work Why the frown?Borremans: If I lived in prehistoric times I would probably be the one who painted animals on the rocks Things were going well for humanity back then: there was still a certain harmony with nature then Everything started to go wrong when we became sedentary Then we started growing in numbers and now we are the planet’s cancer I find the implicit nature of imagery more truthful: things aren’t clear Lots of people give the impression that they understand everything but how long have you been drawing for?Borremans: All my life I started as a toddler and I have never stopped My copybooks were full of little drawings in the margins How did you finally come to venture the switch to painting?Borremans: The realisation that with a painting you are playing on a completely different stage But I thought that my ambitions were too lofty Making paintings is still experimental for me I have been experimenting for ten years now which are really suggestions for sculptures or paintings I could devote my life to it!Cinematek has given you carte blanche for a film programme Does film also provide you with inspiration for your paintings?Borremans: Of course you can’t help being influenced by film and photography Those disciplines have had such a far-reaching effect on the way we look at nature and reality We have become used to seeing within frames people had a larger periphery to their gaze The number of images that they saw was smaller The whole twentieth century was an analysis of the arts Now the -isms are finished and everything is possible at the same time I think it is really positive that you see all those different things coexisting in art you take photographs as your starting point.Borremans: Yes but I use photography in an unconventional way: the photographs are not an objective because I know that they are really paintings you don’t see the medium: it is transparent that history and the mystification that takes place in painting are important.Do you work on your drawings and paintings at the same time?Borremans: A drawing is always a lengthy dialogue Sometimes I work on one for three to six months during which I come back to it now and then My paintings happen over a shorter time span I always try to finish off a painting over a number of days Especially when larger formats are involved I shut myself away and don’t go out at all Then I make sure that I have supplies in and I keep at work until it’s finished That is one on one; then I even sleep in my studio You don’t want to break the concentration; you don’t want to ruin anything I have periods when I make things very difficult for myself Iets gezien in de stad? 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