"Gobelin"
Sculpture 2015
Textile, sand
​
The work "Gobelin" by Veerle Michiels & Jonas Vansteenkiste plays with the idea:
that war is slumbering in our history and even in our  life more so in the historic and everyday objects. They use the tapestry fabric to make bags out of them and fill them up with sand, making them into sandbags.

A sandbag is a bag or sack made of hessian (burlap), polypropylene or other sturdy materials that's filled with sand or soil and used for such purposes as flood control, military fortification, shielding glass windows in war zones, ballast, and in other applications requiring mobile fortification. The most common sizes for sandbags are 36 by 66 cm to 43 by 81 cm. These dimensions, and the weight of sand a bag this size can hold, allow for the construction of an interlocking wall like brickwork. Individual filled bags are not too heavy to lift and easy to handle.
The advantages are that the bags and sand are inexpensive.

The title and the material used by Michiels and Vansteenkiste are not inexpensive.

The titel "Gobelin" makes reference to Gobelin tapestry in general, but more specifically refers to the origins of the tapestry from the manufacture des Gobelins in Paris. That factory was established in the unoccupied building - Hôtel Tapestry - previously used by the dyer Gobelin.

Between 1694 and 1699 the factory was closed due to the slump during the Nine Years War.

In a way they play with the value of these "sandbags" by using a more precious material they suggest the priceless value of this object.

On the other hand the suggestion that war is always home  by using  domestic tapestry.