La Lanterne de LantinEnsemble from M HKA Ensembles

Ensemble: La Lanterne de Lantin

Special edition of the Lanterne de Lantin featuring the refusal of the Zaïrian consulate to accept the declaration of dependence from Zaïre offered by the Belgian Institute for World Affairs... some description of the proceedings and on the back a copy view of the BIWA directors in the waiting area of the Zaïrian consulate.

Launched on the 8th of March 1989, this monthly flyer was conceived to be a shared information channel, with various editors and themes... it can be seen as a spin-off of the earlier 'Het Orgaan' and gave rise to a number of similar pamphlets... More or less from the inception it was meant to be a multi-editied periodical, with a very wide brief and more or less total editorial freedom.

Though format was essentially that of "Het Orgaan" to begin with - an A3 folded a certain way as to be able to be sent without an envelope - it took on various guises over time and could appear as a major work such as the "Lanterne de Luxe" made for the Documenta IX: a large silk spead worked with black, red and yellow textile inks... or as smaller multi-page editions or even just stamped objects.

Later it became a major source of idiosyncratic information from the Middle and Far East as Jef spent more and more time away, so there are quite a number of LdL's with exotic stamps and can as such be seen as a recognizable suite of mail-art...

Different (guest-)*editors used various names and sometimes their products would lead to an own series of publications independent of the LdL... it also served to launch a series of information-flyers for activities of the 'fifty-fifty' group over a longer period...(*Jef Lambrecht mentiones the first editors as being Ariane Tierssoone, Chris Straetling, Guy Rombouts & Monica Droste (AWAWA) Johan Van Geluwe, Robert Montoya, Rolf A. Kleunter, Wout Vercammen a.o.)