Greetje Blankers lived her entire life in a cave dwelling in the Sint Pietersberg. Today, only fragments of these homes remain, traces embedded in the landscape, barely visible yet still present.
This installation explores the relationship between time, memory and space through reflection and transparency. Positioned within the former site of the dwelling, a mirrored glass surface captures its surroundings while simultaneously dissolving into them. The landscape, the visitor and the remnants of the past merge into a single, shifting image.
During the development of this project, The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard served as an important source of inspiration. His reflections on the house as a place of memory, imagination and inner life informed the way this project approaches space, not as a fixed object, but as something that is experienced, remembered and imagined.
From a distance, the intervention appears almost invisible, blending with its environment. As one approaches, subtle changes begin to occur. Light from within the cave reveals the former contours of the façade, allowing the memory of the house to slowly unfold. What was once a place of shelter and daily life re-emerges, not as a reconstruction, but as a fleeting presence.
The installation does not aim to recreate the dwelling, but to make its absence tangible. Through reflection, the visitor becomes part of the work, standing between past and present, between what once was and what remains.
In this way, the project becomes a quiet dialogue with the site, a spatial translation of memory, where architecture is no longer built, but remembered.
