Environment is a word that is much more precise than installation. And I would choose that word to describe 1 KIND because the space and objects have been designed around actions and movement. It's a situation the artist has slowly developed as a place to spend time, almost a habitat.

1 KIND, here in West, follows 1 STORY and 1 WAY, two previous episodes in a series that has been unfolding. So far each episode has had it's own forms and 'scenarios' (nest, island, boats) but has shared a similar internal logic based on play and necessity.

You create your own truth, says Wannes. Your truth is what you create. From this standpoint you can see the objects you place within your environment as your truth-choices, or truth-habits. The more closely you define them, the more of yourself is revealed. For some this search ends in neurosis or extreme narcissism, I think Wannes turns it into a game. The studio and the gallery are the limits of the playing-field. There are also rules, and finally there is the 'play' itself- inventing something then taking it further (skill), then further (wit), until finally just too far (absurdity).

As for the rules, well, the main one is that the forms you see have evolved from a physical logic that is related either to him (for example the dimensions of his body) or to each other (that they fit through, fold, or stack). Another rule is that they are all handmade, by his hands. Or maybe let's say self-made, because that doesn't have the same idea of fetishism or Sunday hobbyists. They are self-made forms that fulfill a precise role he has allotted to them in the journey he's making.

2007, Liz Haines