The Thread Video, 2015. 15’30” Looped video, colour, sound, full HD video

A Chinese proverb says that an invisible thread connects those destined to meet, irrespective of time, place and circumstances. The thread can be tightened or become tangled, but will never be broken. Taking this clear and simple metaphor as his starting point, Hans Op de Beeck created the video The Thread, a visual love poem about a punk girl and boy who grow old together, and who keep each other alive with needle and thread. Love and death here go hand in hand. The film refers both formally and thematically to the traditional Japanese Bunraku theatre, where black-clad puppet masters manipulate large puppets to create a tragic (love) story. In Thread the black figures animating and supporting the main protagonists are of equal importance, underlining the essence of structure as the driver of narrative fiction. The work was originally developed for Espace Louis Vuitton in Tokyo as a special commission for the project Le Fil Rouge.