Recyclable Refugee Camp

"Ives Maes probed the derailment of contemporary hyper-ethics with his project for a recyclable refugee camp. His latrines, wells, shelters and coffins, fabricated in a natural resin, raise ethics to a manic state. The Recyclable Refugee Camp tackles the ethical imperative that encourages art to intervene in the world, localizing the epicenter of a new utopia inside the boundaries of the art world itself."
Excerpt from the text 'An economy of truth' by Wim Peeters, published in Flash Art nr. 235, 2004

"From a moral point of view, you can probably never do something with a project such as Recyclable Refugee Camp. And also psychologically it would take an effort. You have to have some experience with the ironic- polemic use of language before understanding the work of Ives Maes. With possible roots in the Dada, he excersises a new technique on an incredibly dangerous theme: the art to declamate a pact with the worst of the worst, on an ironic filthy way. With cynical speeches he creates an image of himself beyond good and evil, an image that wants to be just like his impressions of the neocolonial wars and their terroristic devisions. It is radical philosophical action. Here the art of a militant irony comes into practice."
Excerpt from the text 'Ives Maes and the absolute ethical artwork' by Hubert Dethier for the occasion of a lecture coïnciding with the exhibition 'The Greenery Line', SMAK Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent, Belgium, 2006