Bert Villa

Bert Villa is an artist-architect who works with installations, photography and architectural structures. He often takes his starting point from a specific location and the stories it embodies. By isolating or recontextualising recognisable phenomena from our environment, he questions the way in which our living environment is culturally, historically and socially determined.

Whistleblower was created during a residency at the Watersnoodmuseum in Zeeland and is inspired by the engineers Rulkens and Van Vee, who, as early as 1928, sounded the alarm in vain to warn of the impending flood disaster that inundated Zeeland in 1953. On the one hand, it refers to people who figuratively sound the alarm about misconduct and speak out against the established order. On the other hand, it refers to the bell tower of a church. This instrument, as part of a religious structure, not only forms and marks the centre of a village or town, but also serves to alert the population to the start of Sunday service, a wedding, the time of day or to warn them of impending disaster.