Mia Kermis Stefanie Claes / Lucinda Ra

Near Stefanie Claes’ former home, there is a baby hatch: a place that fascinates her endlessly. The image of a newborn child with no apparent origins is the beginning of a story that is important to Stefanie. Foundlings are described in old city archives as people without a past. But everyone comes from somewhere, don’t they? What meaning does a past have for your present and future? The names of foundlings were inspired by the circumstances in which the children were found, from Marie Orgie and Engelbertus Dorstig (‘Thirsty’) to Maria Ijsrol (‘Ice Cream’) and Anne Theresia Kermis (‘Funfair’).

Mia Kermis  is an ode to all the foundlings who have ever lived and to our curiosity and imaginings about our origins. In Mia Kermis, Stefanie Claes (Lucinda Ra) creates a unique, visual language without words to tell the story of a child who goes in search of her own beginning so that she can grow up and develop.