The artist Elke Lemmens has created a series miniature scenes in the small iron boot-scrapers attached to Antwerp town houses.
Originally used to scrape off mud, the boot-scrapers had fallen into disuse until Lemmens decided to create tiny scenes based on the stories of the people living in the houses.
She has created 45 works so far in four different Antwerp neighbourhoods. Next to each work, a QR code lets you listen to the story of the family living in the house.
One charming scene at Kromme Elleboogstraat 6 shows five members of a well-travelled Antwerp family standing on different spots on a tiny globe. All 45 of Elke’s tiny works are mapped on her website (hausgemacht.be).
Derek Blyth’s hidden secret of the day: Derek Blyth is the author of the bestselling “The 500 Hidden Secrets of Belgium”. He picks out one of his favourite hidden secrets for The Brussels Times every day.
