Testudo

Intro Testudo by Peter De Cleyn:
"As an avid enthusiast of the lute, that impossible instrument, I have had the privilege for several years to spend some time almost every day among the sounds of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

By chance, a few months ago, in my ceramics studio, an idea grew into a small project, which I conveniently called ' testudo ' : a number of free associations born from the lute, its shape and the often mysterious titles of the repertoire.

Earth, tormented and baked, often combined with a number of collected pieces of wood and metal that were lying around in my studio and that continued to appeal to me because of the traces of time they bear, transformed into small sculptures, not without some melancholy, in which non-Luthomaniacs could discover some aesthetic qualities, ... and some sober poetry.

' Testudo ', exactly the Latin name that had long been given to a tortoise and which was later assigned to the lute. There is apparently some similarity in form, but there would also be a common symbolism around domesticity and silence .

I have no interest in turtles at all.

But when I read in Plutarch that Aphrodite was so often depicted at the time, precisely because of those two heavenly gifts... resting with a light foot... on a tortoise..."

With texts by Liesbet Vereertbrugghen and Johan De Groef

Liesbet Vereertbrugghen studied musicology at the KULeuven and until recently was a producer and network coordinator at Klara (VRT). She taught music history in part-time art education and created a whole series of musical theater performances, with or without or for young people, including 'Red Shoes', 'Suivez le guide', 'Ongeveer Schubert', 'Melanie Bonis, m/f of the year' and 'My Little Prince'. She wrote several books about music such as 'Everyone Classical' and 'The Silence of Music for Bach'. In the books 'On roses' and 'Swans' she looked for cultural-historical stories around the rose and the swan respectively. She has been conducting the Nieuwdauw choir for more than 20 years.

Johan De Groef studied educational sciences and philosophy and subsequently trained as a psychoanalyst. He has a private practice in Vilvoorde and is a trainer-supervisor Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (KU Leuven). He is a titular member of the Belgian School of Psychoanalysis and the VVPT.