Charlotte Adigéry Turns Ghent Into a Playful Map of Music, Memory and Social Commentary

A strange stone carving above Ghent’s town square set the tone for a city tour with musicians Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul. The 18th-century Mammelokker depicts a daughter nursing her father, and the sight prompted Pupul to ask their interviewer an unsettling question about the sculpture’s subject. The exchange quickly dissolved into laughter, capturing the duo’s taste for the absurd. The pair drew on the carving for the video to “Googoo Gaga,” a song that plays with the subject of child-rearing. In the clip, Adigéry appears as a wet nurse to an elderly man. The image can be read as a comic reference to the artwork, while the musicians’ work often layers jokes with social commentary, including ideas about Belgium’s colonial history. Adigéry and Pupul guided the interviewer through the city where they live, travelling by cargo bike and pausing for coffee and a look at the restored Van Eyck altarpiece. Their progress was slow: familiar faces kept appearing along the way. Pupul recognized a former babysitter, while Adigéry encountered a childhood friend visiting from the United States. They also spotted the original drummer from Soulwax and an actor from the film “Belgica,” which featured music by the duo. Those encounters made the walk feel less like a conventional sightseeing trip and more like a passage through the musicians’ personal histories. Ghent is not simply a backdrop to their work; it is home, threaded with friendships and memories that surfaced as they moved through its streets. The duo first attracted attention for combining pop with political ideas, and the tour offered a glimpse of how that sensibility meets their everyday lives. They presented the city with humor and affection, while the Mammelokker’s unsettling image showed how an odd local landmark can become material for a song, a video and a conversation.