Calculated Risk

Calculated Risk by artist-equilibrist Kasper Vandenberghe consists of three intimately intertwined parts: The Ritual, The Installation and The Story. The course is a poetic search for how vulnerable we can still allow ourselves to be and how we can understand vulnerability as a force. How can we whitstand the storm of live? Vandenberge dances on the loose rope between two deeply human desires: the desire for balance versus a bottomless leap into the unknown.

During The Ritual, he climbs on a scaffolding clad in a protective suit made of mattress padding and bubble wrap and then drops down like a rock from a height of 4.20 meters. It is calculated recklessness. It is an ode to the fragility and extraordinary resilience that reveals the kinship between the creative artist and the playing child. Every one of Vandenberghe’s steps is accompanied by a text from Peter Verhelst.

The Installation reveals the monks' work behind his meticulous research into trial and error. Finally, during The Story he discusses various aspects of the calculated risk. He reports on his conversations with professionals such as a circus artist, hypnotist and insurer and testifies of what is perhaps the most important risk factor in our lives: love. And because of a delayed assembly of his fall movement, Vandenberghe's entire enterprise suddenly appears in a different light.