Coastal shrine

de Els Dietvorst

During the first Covid lockdown in 2020, when we were only restricted to 2 kilometers, I was walking from one beach to the other. Then my eyes fell on a rock with a little white stone on it. Written on the stone, in what looked like a young girl's handwriting, was the following message: "Covid, I am lonely." That attempt at connection inspired me. After half an hour walking there by the sea, I added ten more white stones to the rock. I kept doing this gesture daily, like a ritual. Other walkers started copying me and the Covid shrine became not only a personal ritual but a collective monument of connection. Laying a stone at the temple is sharing your intention and special wish with the universe and releasing it to the elements.-- Els Dietvorst. This publication is part of the PhD research Partisans of the Real conducted by Els Dietvorst at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (AP University of Applied Sciences and Arts) & the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA - University of Antwerp). 'Coastal Shrine' is published in parallel with the exhibition This is what you came for in CENTRALE for contemporary art and Bozar Brussels. Track Report documents research in the arts at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. Mutsaardstraat 31, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium. Exhibition: CENTRALE for contemporary art & Bozar, Brussels, Belgium (28.04. - 18.09.2022).