Arno Boey: 'The city sheds its skin, and from a distance, this becomes noticeable'

Every three weeks, another Brussels-based creative shares their view of the world. Arno Boey is a word artist (collective ZINK) and a story cartographer (1020stories.be, with Yelena Schmitz) with a fascination for dance.

Thanks to its waterways and hills, Brussels is dotted with views. You don't have to get into some giant wheel or skyscraper to have a great view. The view is often just around the corner. There is Poelaertplein/place Poelaert and the Kunstberg/Mont des Arts which overlook the Brussels pentagon. There is the Jubelfeestbrug/Pont du Jubilé with its beautiful view over the Northern Quarter. In Wolvendael Park, you stand high above Ukkel/Uccle, Hoogveld looks out across Sint-Agatha-Berchem/Berchem-Sainte-Agathe and from the square around the Erasmus Hospital you can see as far as the Palace of Justice.

A while back, I started collecting these Brussels views. When a good friend moved to Peru, we decided to communicate exclusively in pictures of vistas. We don't write long letters to each other, but simply summarise our days on the shores of another continent in panoramic photographs. For my friend, the images feel like a brief homecoming and for me it has become a way to travel without limitations.

“View No. 4: La cordillera blanca de Los Andes”

“View No. 5: The sun sets over Schaarbeek/Schaerbeek”

Today, I have added a new vista to our conversation. No. 12 is the view from the basilica at Koekelberg. I stand there with my partner looking at the neighbourhood of my childhood. Streets run away from the church like the rays of a star. I point to my parents' house which is along one of those rays. From that house, I used to look out on the basilica and as a child, I often imagined that it was not a church, but a spaceship. Later, I also imagined it like a neon-lit brothel, as a sleeping pregnant woman, as a gluttonous ice cream sundae.

As I stand at the dome, I can see the house and the garden where my mother prunes her roses and the tall spruce in the neighbours' garden. There is the playground at the end of the street and the apartment buildings a bit further down, the municipal swimming pool and my grandmother's old house. There are new people living there now, I notice that the roof tiles and window frames have been replaced. The house has been refurbished; it looks more modern. This view is only temporary. Roof tiles change colour and walls are knocked down, trees felled, and towers built. The city sheds its skin, and from a distance, this becomes noticeable.

We walk further along the dome. My partner is new to Brussels, I point out more, try to share the landscape with him. We see the royal domain and the Japanese tower, an incinerator a little further down the road. Below us, cars are driving out of town and traffic lights provide a rhythm. I see trains approaching and disappearing into tunnels and then coming out the other side. Footballers train on a field, the ball flies over the goal. We see how the game is being created. It's not very difficult to understand, we just have to look. The city will explain itself.

As long as we stay up there, the landscape we belong to is before us. I recognise it and yet every time it is new. I'll take a picture of it and send a piece of home overseas.