'The bedrooms in which I still wake up' are reconstructions in scale 1:10 of the bedrooms that the artist once slept on in which he still wakes up.
Everyone knows the fact. Waking up slowly, looking at where the alarm clock is and then being disoriented. You realize that you are somewhere else.
In a hotel room or in your new home.
The twilight zone, the moment between sleeping and waking, is a theme that is regularly addressed in the work of Frank Halmans
In reconstructing his former bedrooms (such as his first bedroom in the parental home, then the attic room and his bedroom in his first own home), memory plays a crucial role.
Memories are therefore essential for the artist. "Forgetting is alarming," he says, "everything has been in vain, meaningless, if you were content with forgetting."
His mother once said that the bed in one of the reconstructions had to be somewhere else.
For Halmans, that is just her memory that is different from his memory.
Since the start of this project in 1996, Halmans has occasionally taken the time to work out some details.
A hell of a job, filling a bookcase with orange comic books, a light or a cupboard that went with the move must be made several times.