Dag Venus, Jupiter

Een prachtig artikel geschreven door Nele Buyst over het ritueel 'Caught Fish, City Fish' van Karel Verhoeven tijdens het festival 'Women and Children First’ in 2023.



Open Museum van de Toekomst

Museumparticipatie: Hoe kan een museum zich duurzaam verbinden met de samenleving?


Voor het onderzoek rond ‘het open museum van de toekomst’ van onderzoeker/docent Veerle De Schrijver van Artevelde Hogeschool maakte ik een aantal visuele verslagen. Hier lees je meer over het onderzoek en kan je alle mappings en illustraties bekijken.


The Publication Party @ HOMO NOVUS FESTIVAL, Riga (Latvia)

In September we presented the publication ‘STADSATELIER: 10 years of artistic practices in and with the city’ at the Homo Novus Festival in Riga (Latvia). An enriching and interesting experience with so many lovely people! Thank you Zahra Aghili, Leontien Allemeersch, Fatih De Vos, Róise Goan and Evelyne Coussens. And last but not least: the amazing Bek Berger for hosting us!

Mapping 10 years STADSATELIER

In close collaboration with Evelyne Coussens, Elly Van Eeghem, Niké van Os, Leontien Allemeersch, and Matthias Velle I am working on a publication about 10 years STADSATELIER, a city residency program at Arts Centre VIERNULVIER. This publication is being made in the framework of BE PART - Art Beyond Participation, a Creative Europe Project that does a critical inquiry into participatory art practices. With the support of Marlies Vermeulen from the Institute of Cartopology, I made a map: a subjective, poetic interpretation of ten years of residencies in the city of Ghent. The publication will be presented in September in Riga, Latvia during the Homo Novus Festival.

Mappings Watersportbaan - Neermeersen

I made these mappings during “Projectweek Public Space / Watersportbaan - Neermeersen” - a close collaboration between CAMPUSatelier, de Koer, Construct Lab, VIERNULVIER, KASK School of Arts, Arteveldehogeschool Social Work, KU Leuven / LUCA Architecture, and Brussels based Arba ESA. Other artists and people that were involved were Joram Kunde, Bert Villa, Maarten Jolie, Simon Allemeersch, Eline Harmse, Andy Sarfo, Leontien Allemeersch, Jorik De Wilde, Cédric Noël, Diede Roosen, and Elly Van Eeghem.

Pictures Festival "Women and Children First: Exercises in re-enchanting"

The festival ‘WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST’* explores different societal themes with each new edition. Having previously looked at the topics of privilege, acquired rights and (fair) care (2019), and inclusion and accessibility (2020), for this third edition we’re focusing on re-enchantment. Think magic, mythology, rituals, and contemporary witchcraft. 

The myth of capitalist modernity is showing cracks on all sides: the current system is making people ill. We should slow down and collectively reflect on what connects us: our bodies, our histories, our ancestors, our planet and the more-than-human. 

‘WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST’ invites us to look past our differences and start thinking as a collective again, to find new forms of relating to and interacting with each other. Through the festival programme, we’ll explore what magic, myths, rituals and enchantment can contribute to this goal. 

We’re inviting artists to create and share new narratives for a more just and magical future, each in their own way. From a collective ‘Wild Carnaval Sauvage’ to a ‘beauty kit farm’, from a magickal animist direct action workshop to a performance exploring the contemporary witch figure – we’ve got a magic programme for you.

Come and think, discuss, learn, and dance with us!

Check the program at https://www.viernulvier.gent/womenandchildrenfirst
Curated in close collaboration and with the support of Martha Keil (‘Breaking the Spell’), Maria Lucia Cruz Correia, Kopano Maroga, Matthieu Goeury, Tine Theunissen, and Róise Goan.

Wild Carnaval Sauvage

Super excited to have been part of this amazing opening ritual for the “Women and Children First Festival : Exercises in Re-Enchanting”. We were chasing away Winter and welcoming Spring together with CAMPUSatelier, Takkenorkest / Ledebirds, “La S” Grand Atelier Vielsalm, Michiel De Jager, Nicolas Clément, Anaïd Ferté, Barbara Massart, De Koer, the choir of laGeste, Mais Quelle Chanson, Bob van de Putte & de Academie voor Beeldende Kunst Gent, Kristof Van Gestel / De Collectieve Collectie, Maarten De Keukelaere en de walvissen, Melanie De Munck, Zing mee, Jong Groen, Stephen Verstraete and tons of enthusiastic participants.

See you all again next year!

Treehouses : drawings

During the Christmas Holidays, I made some drawings of treehouses.
They bring me comfort to escape the sometimes brutal reality and make me dream about all the good things that will happen :) I used charcoal and negro conté crayon.

All drawings are for sale (sizes between A3 and A2, I also made some A4 prints on beautiful Japanese paper). Let me know if you are interested.

ATLAS – Beyond Participation

2020 – 2023, Ongoing research

ATLAS is an artistic and social laboratory that unites a collective of artists, critical thinkers and cultural workers. This temporary collective works around four central themes of the European project BEPART: power dynamics, collective policy, redefining the public, and the significance of a particular place. 

Their collaborative practice consists of two components: a book of mappings and a multimedia happening based on these mappings. In turn, the practice also generates new mappings for the book. 

Atlas Collective consists amongst others of Elly Van Eeghem, Marieke De Munck, Matthias Velle, Niké van Os, Samah Hijawi, Lieselot Siddiki, Dominique Collet, Leontien Allemeersch, Robin Vanbesien, Michiel Soete, Chris Rotsaert, Fatih Devos, Evelyne Coussens, May Abnet, Andy Sarfo, Max Pairon & Jorik De Wilde. This project marks the first time the collective is working together.

ATLAS Ljubljana – October 2021

In October 2021 we went with a group of artists to Ljubljana in the framework of the second Assembly of the BE PART Network. We lived and collaborated for one week together and shared our research with an audience of the City of Women Festival with the Closing Happening x HET VERMOEDEN VAN EEN STAD x SUM NA MESTO x A HINT OF A CITY x.

Closing happening at the Old Power Station Elektro

Photos © Leontien Allemeersch

READ MORE ABOUT ATLAS IN LJUBLJANA

Atlas is a temporary and fluid collective of around 15 artists, cultural workers and art critics each with their own practice related to participation. During several residencies they share their practices and collaborate on a common-practice. Socially engaged and collaborative art practices are being discussed in the context of specific sites and audiences as well as changing power dynamics and political shifts. In a time of worsening working conditions, Atlas offers the space for artistic work and reflection, shared meals, and having fun together with curators, young artists, students and cultural workers.

In October 2021 the Atlas-collective dived into a residency in Ljubljana on invitation of the City of Women-festival. As a way of ‘living practice’ Atlas lived together for 9 days, to see how their practices can root in a new city and how to relate them to each other. Everyone uses their own tools, for some that is food, for others a pen, a stage, needle and thread, our voice,.. During their stay Atlas builded a portrait, a possible city made out of impressions of the place surrounding them. Linked by coincidences, driven by curiosity and connections.

How to gather all these different impressions, actions and thoughts? As a working methodology the Atlas-collective shares on a regular basis ‘bezinksels’, you can think of the cold coffee in your cup after a day of work, the leftover screw in your pocket or a scribble in your notebook you don’t want to forget. These bezinskels, which can be translated as residues, give insights into the different trajectories of the collective. All these outcomes aren’t finalised or concretized but intuitive and organic reactions to what is happening. 

And all of a sudden, by bringing together all these residues through connecting, combining and collecting, a landscape unfolds itself. Atlas invites you to dive into our Sum na mesto. Discover a map of the city consisting of different points of views, endless streams of thoughts and fragments of impressions assembled by many hands and eyes. This is a welcome to dive in the surroundings you know or places you haven’t been before. 

ATLAS - A BOOK

From September 2022 we start to work on ATLAS, a book. This will be a publication looking back on ten years of STADSATELIER at VIERNULVIER and forward, towards looking at participation in the arts in a different way. Check upcoming stories soon.

Festival 'Women and Children First: Exercises in Re-Enchanting'

This is a mapping I made for the Women and Children First Festival that I am curating. The festival is taking place from March 1 until March 11, 2023, at Arts Centre VIERNULVIER in Ghent, Belgium. We will explore notions of enchantment, magic, rituals, and myths with performances, work sessions, conversations, and rituals. The festival is inspired by the writings of a.o. Silvia Federici and the Breaking the Spell project by Marta Keil and Grzegorz Reske.

Program will be online mid January 2023 on VIERNULVIER.

MARIEKE CLAIRE

I am featured with a short interview in the Marie Claire, read it here (in Dutch) (below the pictures English translation).

Woman to watch: Marieke De Munck

By Hannah Gellens

With our Woman to Watch section, we regularly put a woman in the spotlight. They are women who inspire, encourage and motivate other women in their free time or at work. This time it's Marieke De Munck's turn.

Marieke De Munck

45 years

Lives in Ghent, Belgium.

Marieke de Munck is a curator at Arts Center Vooruit in Ghent. There she is also responsible for Groene Vooruit, the 'future' team that is putting sustainability on the map. For example, she contributed to the decision to make this Ghent cultural gem an ambassador of the EU Climate Pact that aims for a climate neutral Europe by 2050.

Education: Marieke De Munck obtained her title as Master in the Visual Arts at LUCA & KASK School of Arts Ghent. But she was looking for more knowledge and development and chose to do an additional Master's degree in Performance Arts & Media Studies at Ghent University.

Career: Marieke De Munck is a visual artist. She herself describes her drawings and collages as 'engaged'. Not in the radical, grotesque sense of the word, but more in a gentle, human scale. She gets inspired by the condition humaine, stories, emotions, and the environment we live in. In addition to being a visual artist, Marieke De Munck is also working as a curator at Kunstencentrum Vooruit, as mentioned earlier. She puts interesting art and culture in the spotlight in all kinds of forms: from festivals and theater to debates and collective actions.

Motto: “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think” – Winnie the Pooh

Her strength: super-connector, many ideas, great enthusiasm, and a small corner off

Why a power woman?

Marieke De Munck is a woman with an opinion, someone you can always turn to for a good chat about the big questions of life. In addition, she is also a busy bee who expresses herself creatively in her visual work and for Vooruit. But growing up on the edge of a forest, there is one theme that Marieke cannot let go of: ecology. She, therefore, did not hesitate for a moment when the proposal came that Vooruit would become an ambassador for the EU climate pact.

“Based on my personal ambitions and due to the job I am in, I was preparing an action plan for sustainability at the Vooruit Arts Center. When we then got the chance to become ambassadors of the EU Climate Pact, I didn't hesitate for a moment. Everyone should do as much as possible what they can do for the climate. Every little bit helps.”

“I consider myself radical in thought, but pragmatic in action. For example, I would never chain myself to a tree for days for the climate. But I think it's fantastic that there are others who are so radical and just do it. In my opinion, radicality must coexist with pragmatics in order to get the masses on board. We need radical ideas to imagine where we want to go. But that radicality is often not feasible for a large group of people, but pragmatic (intermediate) solutions are. I used to be quite radical myself, but with age, I learned to work more pragmatically.”

When Marieke is asked what the solution could be for the climate problem, she invariably answers collectivity. “Everyone can help in his/her/their way to make the boat change direction. We must therefore continue to meet, maintain social contact and really work together. Because that is where the desire and activism to jointly do things, and do them differently, arise.”

“As a 94-year-old, I would like to sit next to an old oak tree and see that people and all life on the planet are doing well. See that together, as humanity, we have succeeded in creating a socio-economically just society with respect for the large ecosystem of which we ourselves are a part. That we have come to a point where I can die with peace of mind.”