HERT (2023 - now)
Theatre and artistic research
HERT is an ongoing theatre project that gathers and reimagines patient histories connected to the rehabilitation hospital of UZ Pellenberg. The work is created by a collective of theatre makers and artists who themselves grew up as children within the corridors, waiting rooms and treatment trajectories of this institution. What emerges is not a distant historical account, but a deeply embodied form of storytelling: a theatre practice rooted in lived experience. HERT contributes to documenting an often overlooked chapter of disability history in Flanders. The project aims to make visible experiences that rarely appear in official narratives of medical institutions: the voices of patients themselves.
The project draws inspiration from the narrative structure of The Decameron, the medieval cycle of frame stories told during a time of crisis. In HERT, this concept is translated into a contemporary theatrical format in which multiple voices, memories and perspectives accumulate and intersect. Individual stories are shared, echoed, interrupted and reframed, forming a layered dramaturgy of care, waiting, resilience and interdependence.
Through this research, HERT positions itself at the intersection of theatre, disability history, medical humanities and community practice. The project asks how theatre can become a site for remembering, for listening, and for collectively reimagining the stories that shape our bodies and our lives. The project experiments with alternative production logics grounded in crip theory and critical disability studies, implementing what might be described as a deeply embodied form of crip time. The rhythm of the work follows the rhythm of the bodies involved: slower when necessary, attentive to rest, interruption, recovery and fluctuation. In this sense, the creative process mirrors the temporalities through which disability and chronic illness are lived and experienced. Through this, HERT becomes a space where personal histories resonate collectively.
HERT is developed in collaboration with Mira Bryssinck, Sander Deckx, Nirmala Coppejans and Kwinten Van Heden. Music is made by André Vandorpe and Luca Fazioli. There are several cultural, academic and medical partners, including Vesalius Museum, 30CC, NTGent, UZ Pellenberg, UZ Gent, GRIP vzw, and Move To Improve.