“Scar Tissue”
research, drawings, and lead paint, 2019
Throughout history, cities have borne the marks of conflict, destruction, and reconstruction. These scars—be they physical fractures in architecture or symbolic divisions in public space—are not merely traces of the past, but active elements in the shaping of urban memory. In his artistic practice, Jonas Vansteenkiste reflects on these spatial wounds by engaging with archival images of damaged buildings and intervening with layers of material and metaphor.
Using lead paint, Vansteenkiste marks these photographic surfaces with dense, heavy gestures that re-inscribe the trauma into the visual field. Rather than concealing the wound, this act makes it present again—elevating the scar from historical residue to expressive structure. The lead, historically used for both protection and containment, becomes a charged medium: its materiality echoes the weight of remembrance and the toxic legacy of violence.
This gesture counters the Western tendency to erase or "heal" trauma in the built environment—an impulse driven by ideals of completeness and aesthetic restoration. In many non-Western traditions, by contrast, the scar is understood not as a flaw but as a testimony. It is a space of transformation, a visible trace that holds and communicates memory. Vansteenkiste’s interventions resonate with such perspectives, suggesting that the wound is not simply a mark of loss but also of survival and meaning.
The scarred city^1 thus becomes a conceptual and affective landscape—where absence is made visible, and history is materially inscribed. Vansteenkiste invites viewers to inhabit these ambiguities: to consider how memory is archived in surfaces, how damage can become structure, and how the act of marking transforms seeing into remembering.