The Divine Comedy Travelling through the Asperen Fortress

In 1300 the Italian Poet Dante Alighieri in 'The Divine Comedy' undertook an imaginary travel through the three reigns of the afterlife. Dante is as well main person as storyteller. On his way he is accompanied by the Latin Poet Vergilius, his lover Beatrice and the mystic Bernadrus de Clairvaux. They assist him at difficult times and finally lead him to the contemplation of God.

Almost seven centuries later artists Danny Devos, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, and Moniek Toebosch take the visitors of the Asperen Fortress again on a trip through hell, purgatory and paradise. The exhibition is not a literal interpretation of 'The Divine Comedy', although every visitor, just like Dante, has to bear first the horror of hell before being purified and finally being allowed to see the light in paradise.

But every visitor has a different experience. An experience which, contrary to the medieval one, can be individual so that what is considered hell for one, can be paradise for another. Or the other way around. In the seven hundred years since Dante went on his travel, fixed ideas of hell, purgatory and paradise have become uncertain. Hell is not always dreadful, paradise not always the goal. With the detachment of original religious signification of the three realms, the individual representation comes foremost. Danny Devos, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, and Moniek Toebosch show their vision on one of the realms in the fortress. Brigitte van der Sande, 1999. These pages focus on the work of Danny Devos.