Belgicum

“Belgicum is brilliant. It’s an epitaph for a country that disappeared before Vanfleteren’s eyes, like a sand castle in the breaking waves.”

— Eric Min in De Morgen

Belgicum is a photo project about Belgium. It is not an objective representation of a country but rather a subjective photographical document in black and white. It’s a journey of exploration into a small country in the heart of Europe, at the turn of the centuries.

More than fifteen years Vanfleteren has wandered through and hunted in the ‘Belgicum’ territories, guided by emotion and by the love for his homeland. He made a journey through a scarred land, in search of the irretrievable identity of a country with the melancholic soul of an old nation.

In the past decades, over 11.000 copies were sold of this international bestseller. Belgicum grew out to be a reference work in the Belgian history of photography. On occasion of the tenth birthday of this cult book, it will be reprinted in 2017.

With a text by David Van Reybrouck.