The sculpture and what it means

‘THE GOLEM’
By artist KOEN VANMECHELEN

On the rooftops of Leuven’s Care Centre for Child Abuse

Peter Adriaenssens
Child psychiatrist
Chairman of the Care Centre for Child Abuse

In response to being subjected to a traumatic experience, children tend to ‘freeze’. In theory, they can try and run away, but soon they learn this is not rewarding. Whether the danger comes from an adult or a flood, it always proves stronger and quicker than them. Astounded by what happens, their only response is to freeze, meaning their bodies react in a state of shock. For hours the child keeps innocently looking around, barely speaking. Confronted with such a physical response, adults are easily, though erroneously, lead to believe the child is only mildly affected. However calm and unmoved the child may appear on the outside, on the inside life can be quite intense: traumatic stress fires up blood pressure and pulse, and splits up the brain in a struggle between positive and negative thoughts.

When first being confronted with the sculpture ‘Golem’ by Koen Vanmechelen, I realised its link to the subject of traumatized children: deceivingly unmoved on the outside, the giant resembles the child. Looking at the sculpture’s head, everyone may perceive the emotion he chooses: he may call him smiling, melancholic, severe, in conversation... His posture, however, reveals nothing. He seems to be frozen in time. The invisible (the grief, the unspeakable words, the unseen images) has been stylized into the visible. Only his big open hands suggest there might be more going on inwardly. Anyone meeting the ‘Golem’ feels uneasy on what to do with his own hands, and during our many observations we have seen lots of people spontaneously touching his hands: the Golem and his spectator join their hands.

The hatch in the Golem’s chest gives access to his inner world. There the artist has created a symbolic space. The “Golem of books”, is filled with children’s literature, allowing him to go on a journey. The “Golem” created by Koen Vanmechelen in cooperation with the Leuven Care Centre, however, has a different assignment. On 2 December 2004 he was lifted onto the terrace on top of the Care Centre’s roof. Within the broader city structure it is meant to represent a sort of link between the school down below and its students, the prison on the opposite side and the statue ‘The pulpit’ close to the Province House. Very much in contrast with the reproaching and preaching character of schools, the Golem invites anyone to hand in whatever he wants to share. Like every human being, the Golem’s has a sacral spot inside. Most of the time we can only guess what’s going on inside. Sometimes it is revealed to us, but often it remains hidden in the inner dialogue of man with himself. From the first weeks on after the arrival of the Golem in our centre, children came along to put drawings into his chest; some put into it a closed envelope containing whatever they could not confide to others. Some just wanted to sit quietly with him. One class of teenagers had been discussing the effects of a natural disaster, such as a tsunami, on young people of their age, wrote down their ideas and entrusted them to the Golem.
The Golem is not neither a vault nor a Trojan horse, inciting youngsters to reveal things which can be read by curious adults afterwards. This big bunch of objects and texts filling him up all over the years will eventually develop into a philosophical labyrinth. The ‘Golem’ is a living aid. A statue in daytime, he turns active during the night reading all that was committed to him and penetrating the writers’ thoughts. The Golem plays with the often neglected child, talks with the nightmares of young people haunted by traumatic images, persuading them to give way to a healthy mind. No one will ever know, as the Golem has returned by sunrise, leaving everything to the imagination. So instead of a therapy, the Golem is a mediator between man and his healing.

In December 2004 we organized an international congress on the current state of affairs concerning child abuse. One of the participants was Sister Jeanne Devos. She has been working in India for over 40 years, devoting herself particularly to the care of children employed in different domestic tasks, generally outcasts having suffered physical as well as sexual abuse. In order to be able to defend their case on a regular basis and to obtain an officially recognized status for domestic work, Sister Jeanne Devos has set up a network covering most of India, this way providing safety to abused children. She is surrounded by a team of assistants, from different religious convictions and social backgrounds. In 2000 the University of Leuven rewarded her work with a honorary doctorate. The work taken on by Sister Jeanne and her assistants is far from easy. When she first laid eyes on Koen Vanmechelen’s Golem, she soon understood that this statue could fulfil a symbolic purpose to her as well as to the children for whom she stands. This clearly shows that Koen Vanmechelen’s cosmopolitan world view has quite some things in common with Sister Devos’ project - even more so when the tsunami struck in India and increased the risk of child trading.

The “frozen” exterior of the Golem opens up the statue to all races and religions. He who has the power should not fear the statue, but he who does not (and certainly he who is overrun by power) will read his own language in the Golem’s composure. The Golem can, as such, serve as a signal sent out from Flanders to young people on the other side of the world, clarifying that no continent has the monopoly on either misery or paradise. The fact that the Golem is the product of the philosophical labour of a local artist, demonstrates that we have also been subjected to painful experiences and have felt the need for a ritual recovery. Young people suffering traumatic events can be found all over the world. A Golem of books, a Golem in Leuven, and now a Golem in India: it is never-ending art chained together and continuously evolving: on the inside by what people contribute, on the outside by the effects of the environment and time on the Golem’s ‘skin’. A network of Golem statues stretching out over different continents evokes the power of the victims by stimulating unity. It is globalization on the level of healing.