These objects are displayed in the windows of small merchants and on window ledges in Brussels, and the text focuses on the people that put them there. Some of the objects we had on the eye since ten years, whilst others have only been discovered during our drifts in the city.
Here is a selection from the booklet of the project EYELINER*



Martine Mesureur
Mrs Mesureur inherited this iron used to smooth the inside of cuffs from her great-grandmother, who pressed trousseaux.
She was born in Berchem-Sainte-Agathe in 1957. After studying interior design in Ganshoren and almost prolonging her academic career at La Cambre architecture school, she worked in the hospitality trade after the bankruptcy of the woodwork shop of her dad, Jacques Mesureur. First in the La Marie Joseph restaurant, which was restored by interior designer Christophe Gevers and hand crafted by her father. She then opened a snack bar, Mic Mac in the European quarter with her mother, Marguerite Vandenbulke. The women cooked themselves - everything was fresh, except chips. Her husband Christian Lazzaro worked as a plumber / heating engineer. Both are the custodians of three collections of ancient arts linked to traditional family trades: irons, woodwork tools, blow torches.



Bassel and Haysam Sukkar
The Sukkar family originates from Damascus in Syria. The father, Haysam and the mother, Eptisam arrived in Brussels in the sixties. They still have family in Damascus. Thirty years ago, Mr Haysam opened a second hand shop on the Boulevard Lemonnier, Entreprise générale. The youngest of five boys, Bassel, was born in Ixelles in 1982. He studied economic sciences at the ULB. He works as an accountant for a textile company in Mechelen. Now that his father has retired, he has taken over the management of the family store whilst home working for the textile company.



Ben Amar
Mr Ben Amar was born in 1963 and arrived in Brussels in 2001. He took over the men's hairdressing salon Coiffure Lemonnier in 1999. In his native region of Nador, Mr Ben Amar used to cut his friends' hair for fun, and learned his trade that way. He made it into his job in Brussels.

Anne Monticelli
Mrs Monticelli often changes the composition of objects in her windowsill. She positions them for passers-by and like to assemble them around a theme. Quicky, her dog, accompanies her everywhere. She had different jobs. She started work in 1974 in a soap factory. In 1976, she opened the Monticelli restaurant with her husband Francesco (who is originally from the Abruzzo region) then worked in an electrical goods factory. For the last 17 years, she worked as a cleaner in retirement home Le Tilleul. She and her husband have three children: Fabio, Michael and Laura. Francesco worked for 18 years in a marble factory before opening a restaurant that he still owns today with his son Michael and daughter-in-law Hilde.



Rodrigues/Silverio
Mrs Eunice Rodrigues (born in 1985) and Mr Manuel Silverio (born in 1969) are from Santa Marta de Penaguiao, in Nothern Portugal. They met and married there in 2002. Their first child Jorge was born in the village. In 2005, they settled in Brussels where their four other children were born: Bruno, Ines, José and Antonio. Eunice works as a cleaner for private clients, while Manuel works in the construction industry. Eunice found the sculpture of a pirogue with two African men in the street. Since then, it occupies place of pride on their windowsill.



Ali Alkisaei
Mr Alkisaei was born on 17 may 1961 in Baghdad, Iraq. In 1980, he flees Iraq for Syria and Iran, where he stays until 1990 as a political refugee. He then sets off for Maastricht in Holland, where he starts Monumental Art Studies at the academy. He took part to several exhibitions in various art galleries. He was also involved as a caricaturist with political magazines and worked as an illustrator for children's books. After his studies, he worked as a graphic designer and photographer for advertising agencies. In 2007, he opened his own lettering and advertising agency. In 2014, he opens his travel agency in Brussels, Alrafidein Travel.



Jan van Cutsem
Mr Van Cutsem was born in Halle in 1962. He has a sister and four brothers. His father was a printer for the National Bank. Jan is passionate about numismatics and worked for the KB - in an agency situated inside the buildings of the European Parliament. In 1987, when Belgium presided the Council of the European Communities, the bank manufactured a commemorate coin that proved hugely popular with European Parliamentarians. Later on, Jan opened the European office of an important numismatic company owned by a friend of his in the United States. He then opened his own business in 2001. The House is a company selling gold, silver and coins. He is passionate about the Napoleonic era and the sixteenth century: a period of great change and transition - from the feudal society to Renaissance. Jan is the father of three girls who all work with him, and two sons.



Christine Chomé
Mrs Chomé loves life and the North Sea. She spent her entire childhood in the family house Mon Idole in Coxyde. She sold paper flowers in exchange of shells on the sea banks - Les Tourelles. She returned there many times over the years. She worked as an executive assistant at the Eindhoven technical college, and then left to work as a secretary in a law practice. Brussels-born to a family of lawyers - her father, her brothers, her nephews - she married a Bulgarian comedian - Boris Stoikof - and accompanied him on numerous tours - at the Spa festival, National Theatre, Le Rideau - which then belonged to the Beaux-Arts. Today she is divorced and her former husband has died. Christine has always loved cabaret and museums, which she has paced up and down. She posed for painter Ginette Javaux, who had a studio at the Rouge-Cloitre Abbey, situated in the Sonian Forest. Christine had the first pink car in Brussels, a Jazz.



Adilma Cara
"Frevo" means going out and partying. It also refers to a carnival dance from the State of Pernambuco (Brazil), Mrs Cara's native region. Born in 1985, she arrived in Belgium in 2005. She met her husband Elsid Cara in a café, Le Break 2, which he had opened with his cousin near the Barrière de Saint-Gilles. Elsid was born in 1987 at Shkoder, Albania. They have two children, Matteo (6 years old) and Eloisa (3 years old) and married in Albania in 2014. The Frevo Bar has been open for two years.





* EYELINER, 2017
temporary loan of exhibited objects on Brussels’ windowsills to install a permanent exhibition on the scale of the city through the publication and free distribution of a catalog.



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