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january 28, 2015 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ rEad morE at www.flandErstoday.Eu currEnt affairs \ P2

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Ghent mayor Daniel Termont is one of three finalists for London’s World Mayor Prize

One Antwerp entrepreneur is putting soldier fly larvae to good use eating up our organic waste

The Dark Chambers exhibition at the Dr Guislain Museum celebrates the many sides of melancholy

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Feeling at home, at school okan helps foreign youngsters from different backgrounds settle in flanders andy furniere More articles by andy \ flanderstoday.eu

Adolescents who move to Flanders and don’t speak Dutch can’t register in the secondary education system until they’ve joined a special reception class. As the classes are made up of youngsters from different cultural backgrounds, staff have to come up with innovative ways to introduce them to learning in Flanders. A new report should help improve the system

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hen children and teenagers arrive in Flanders with no knowledge of Dutch, they and their parents can find all the information they need about the education system at their local integration reception bureau. Consultants at these bureaus create a profile of the youngsters on the basis of their cultural background, experiences and academic level, and can then find the most appropriate school for them.

Refugees sometimes suffer from psychosocial problems because of traumatic experiences

© Courtesy sint-Guido Instituut

In primary education, newly arrived children are assigned a place in the regular school system. They are then either integrated into this class through extra support and flexible programmes or provided with an additional reception programme in separate classes.

The situation is different for secondary education. “Schools normally don’t accept the students because of their lack of Dutch,” explains consultant Katja Van Raemdonck of the City of Antwerp’s reception bureau. These pupils must first continued on page 5

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Plagiarism verdict for Tuymans antwerp artist will appeal court decision against his painted copy of a press photo alan Hope Follow alan on Twitter \ @alanHopeFT

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lemish artist Luc Tuymans (pictured) has said he will appeal a judgement against him in a case of plagiarism filed by a photojournalist from De Standaard newspaper. An Antwerp court ruled this week that Tuymans had appropriated the intellectual property of photographer Katrijn Van Giel for his painting “A Belgian Politician”.

The 2011 work was based on a photo of politician Jean-Marie Dedecker taken by Van Giel for De Standaard a year earlier.

The painting is a rendition in oil of the photo, showing the same unusual framing and particularities. Tuymans’ defence argued that the painting is a parody of the original and so not subject to copyright laws.

“The painting by Luc Tuymans is a representation of the press photo by Katrijn Van Giel, neither more nor less,” the court ruled. The court ordered Tuymans to refrain from making further copies of the work at the risk of being fined €500,000 per copy, the sum for which Tuymans sold the painting to an American couple in 2012.

© Courtesy Marcwathieu/wikimedia

Bomb threat shuts down Brussels thoroughfare Buildings in Brussels’ Regentschapsstraat, including the Justice Palace, were evacuated last week after a letter containing a bomb threat was delivered to the Royal Conservatory. Security levels were high because the area is home to not only the Justice Palace but also the Great Synagogue of Europe.

The letter, delivered at about 11.00 on 20 January, contained threats against those buildings specifically.

Both the synagogue and Justice Palace are already under heightened security, including the patrolling of military personnel.

The buildings were evacuated and searched; 90 minutes later, the alert was lifted as the letter appeared to be a hoax. Police have now launched an investigation to find the sender.

In related news, the Flemish Parliament has introduced new security measures to reflect the terrorist threat level being raised from two to three. The changes bring the parliament in line with the measures taken in other government buildings.

The new measures include clos-

The court rejected the parody defence, and Tuymans intends to appeal the decision. “As with many contemporary artists, each work by Luc Tuymans is based on an existing image,” his lawyer explained. The artist’s works include paintings based on photos of Condoleezza Rice and Patrice Lumumba, among others.

“How can an artist call the world into question with his art if he is not allowed to use images arising out of that world? This judgement forbids a particular form of contemporary art and removes the right of contemporary artists to express themselves,” Tuymans defence stated.

“It’s a pity Tuymans didn’t ask Van Giel’s permission to use her image as the basis for his own work,” responded Pol Deltour, national secretary of the Flemish Association of Journalists.

“Photojournalists are under heavy pressure these days and are barely recompensed for the essential work they provide to the news process.”

© Thierry roge/BelGa

ing the Loketten gallery other than to organised groups. Members of parliament are asked to wear their badges visibly and to use the tunnel to move from the office building on Leuvensweg to the adjacent parliament building.

The federal police, meanwhile, have announced that they will not carry out drink-driving checks for hours at a time in one location as long as the terror alert stands at three. The checks are not considered safe given that the latest threats have identified the police as a target. Unannounced spot checks will continue to be carried out. \ AH

OCMW to be scrapped after 2019 elections Flanders’ OCMW – the Public Centre for Social Welfare – is to be abolished in 2019. The proposal comes from home affairs minister Liesbeth Homans and has been approval by the Flemish Parliament.

The decision ends a 220-year period since the French occupier removed authority for social welfare from the church and installed the system of “bipolar” local government, involving a separate administration for social matters.

Individual municipalities will take over welfare services. “Overwhelming evidence has convinced us that there is only one useful working model, which will be applied with flexibility,” Homans told De Standaard. “That consists of an integration into

the municipal administration, with a special social committee to handle social aid cases.”

Services should become “more efficient and faster, especially for the least advantaged,” Homans said.

“A number of people have always declined to consult the OCMW because of the stigma attached. That will now not be the case.”

The plan still has to receive the approval of the federal government, but Homans is confident that will be a formality. “There were agreements reached during the federal government negotiations,” she said. “They are also in the government accord. That has to be implemented. I have every confidence it will be.” \ AH

First “super truck” on Flemish roads Brewer AB InBev and transport company Ninatrans are the first in Flanders to receive a permit to deploy a Longer and Heavier Truck –known in Dutch as an ecocombi or “super truck”. The super trucks will drive between the Ninatrans base in Leuven and the port of Antwerp on a daily basis.

In the coming months, five other companies are expected to receive permits. The government wants to examine the advantages and disadvantages of super trucks in terms of safety, mobility and the environment. After two years, a special commission will evaluate the system.

Super trucks can be up to 25.25 metres long instead of the usual 16.5 metres, and can transport up to 60 tonnes instead of the normal 44 tonnes. “Two super

trucks can replace three regular trucks,” Benny Smets, CEO of Ninatrans, told Het Nieuwsblad. “It is not the purpose to transport more goods along the route but to transport the same amount with fewer trucks, which reduces traffic on roads.”

Although the ecocombi trucks are much bigger, they consumer only a fraction more fuel than regular trucks, according to Smets, which will lead to a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

In order to limit their impact on traffic, super trucks are not allowed to drive through built-up areas or to use routes heavy in pedestrian and cycle traffic.

They are also required to avoid certain crossroads and roundabouts. \ Andy Furniere

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44% of train travellers had their tickets checked by an inspector during a test by public transport group TreinTramBus. The chances are only one in three on a trip to or from Brussels

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Flemish municipalities, 17 of them in West Flanders, will receive compensation for damage caused during the heavy rainstorms of July 2014, minister-president Geert Bourgeois told parliament

accidents involving trams in Brussels in 2014, the highest number for the past five years. Most accidents (1,503) involve cars, with 46 involving pedestrians and 16 involving cyclists

poplar trees to be felled in Leuven along the banks of the LeuvenMechelen canal because of dangers posed to passers-by. The wood will be used to make bio-fuel

crash alarms – a warning that an approaching aircraft is experiencing difficulties – registered at Brussels Airport in 2014, the lowest number in 30 years. In all 13 cases, aircraft were able to land without incident

january 28, 2015

weeK in brief Flemish tennis pro Yanina Wickmayer crashed out of the final 16 of the Australian Open after losing 6-4 6-2 in the Rod Laver Arena to the third seed, Romania’s Simona Halep, on Sunday. Wickmayer, ranked 80th in the world, has enjoyed a revival in form after changing her training routine and almost made a comeback in the second set, breaking Halep’s serve.

But having won three previous matches against the Romanian, Wickmayer lost, missing out on a place in the quarter-finals.

A team of students from the Groep T industrial college in Leuven won third place in the first edition of the Abu Dhabi Solar Challenge, a 1,200-kilometre race for solarpowered vehicles. Fifteen teams from 10 countries took part in the four-day event, which was won by the team from the University of Michigan in the US. Leuven’s Punch Powertrain was, however, the first four-wheeler to cross the finish line.

The number of tourists visiting the Westhoek area of Flanders in 2014 passed all expectations at 789,500, tourism organisation Westtoer announced. The Westhoek, centred on the city of Ypres, is the epicentre of First World War tourism. The most popular single site was Tyne Cot military cemetery in Zonnebeke, which attracted nearly 650,000 visitors, an increase of 80% on 2013’s figure. The In Flanders Fields museum in Ypres saw 65% more visitors, with 500,000.

A couple in Brussels were arrested for being in possession of a large amount of copper, suspected of being stolen. Meanwhile, there were 217 incidents of copper theft from the railways last year, a sharp drop compared to 2012, when there were 1,362 cases. The national action plan against copper thefts came into force in mid-2013.

face of flanders The Brussels commercial tribunal has found mobile phone operator Mobistar guilty of misleading advertising in relation to a campaign in which the company claimed to have the country’s fastest 4G mobile data network.

The complaint was brought by competitor Proximus. Mobistar has cancelled the campaign but intends to appeal.

Police in Bruges are on the lookout for information on the whereabouts of Matthew Webb, a 30-yearold British man who has been missing since leaving the company of friends in a café on the Grote Markt on 21 January to return to his hotel. Webb was in Bruges on a business visit and was wearing blue jeans, white trainers, a blue T-shirt with a red stripe and a black woollen jacket. He has short, reddish hair. Information to 0800 30300.

The government of Flanders intends to go forward with plans to introduce a new fast tram line from Hasselt to Maastricht, despite delays from the Dutch authorities over their part of the project, mobility minister Ben Weyts told parliament last week.

The Dutch claim instabilities along part of the route are responsible for pushing up the price of the Spartacus project. They also have yet to decide on the exact route and the infrastructure required at stops.

“I’ve asked them to provide clarity as soon as possible,” Weyts said.

Police investigating the shootings at the Jewish Museum in Brussels last May have issued a video that they say shows a man alleged to have been an accomplice of Mehdi Nemmouche, the man currently in custody for the attack, in which four people died. The video shows Nemmouche walking with the man in Brussels four days after the attack. A day later, he boarded a bus to Marseilles, where

he was arrested.

http://youtu.be/lvmHPk6ngsE

Two of the most successful shopping centres in the country, Waasland and Wijnegem, are up for sale. Owners CBRE Global Investorsareselling50%oftheWijnegem centre near Antwerp, and 100% of Waasland in Sint-Niklaas. Together the two centres are worth between €600 and €700 million. Waasland attracts 6.3 million visitors a year, and Wijnegem nine million. Both centres are fully occupied.

The city of Ghent will be home to Flanders’ first natural graveyard, alderwoman Sofie Bracke has promised. At present, natural graveyards, where the remains of the deceased are allowed to decompose naturally without embalming and without a coffin, are not legal in Belgium. Environment minister Joke Schauvliege is working on a new law to make it possible. Bracke said she was currently looking for a location in the city. “A natural graveyard is more beautiful if it can be in an existing forest with its own history and with trees of a certain age,” she told Metro newspaper.

The British Federation of Small Businesses has called on the British government to take action against AB InBev, the world’s largest brewer, based in Leuven.

AB InBev is accused of applying payment terms that force small suppliers to wait four months for payment. British secretary of economic affairs, Matt Hancock, has described the terms as “unacceptable,” with companies experiencing cash flow problems, unable to pay VAT bills and forced to turn down work. AB InBev issued a statement defending its practices. “Payment terms … are influenced by prices, quality, the size of the supplier, the type of product or service and the volume of the contract,” the statement reads.

offside food for thought Flanders now has a new foodie phenomenon: the doggy bag. Some weeks ago, we reported here that consumer organisation Test-Aankoop was running a poll on what to call what in English is known as a doggy bag – when your server wraps up any leftover food on your plate and sends it home with you.

Six names were proposed; the winner was restorestje, made up of resto (restaurant) and rest (remainder) and the ubiquitous diminutive ending.

If our canine friends are out of the room, it has to be explained that the restorestje has nothing to do with provid-

ing your dog with a meal: That part of the name in English was originally meant to protect the patron from feeling embarrassed about taking home the leftovers.

In Test-Aankoop’s eyes, the project is a means to combat food waste. Flanders throws away about 66,000 tonnes of perfectly edible food every year, and any initiative to reduce that amount is welcome.

So it is that the city of Ghent will dole out 5,000 restorestje boxes – which can go in fridge, microwave or freezer – to the 46 restaurants that signed up. Restaurants taking part will have a sticker in the window and be featured on a nt Ge map. Test-Aankoop is working now to recruit d a t s sy more restaurants to the cause, in- and outside of te ur Co Ghent. \ Alan Hope ©

© rob stevens/kuleuven

yvo nuyens Yvo Nuyens, who lectured in medical sociology at the University of Leuven and who served as programme director for the World Health Organisation (WHO), has died in hospital in Antwerp from complications following a heart attack. He was 74.

Nuyens’ name is regularly coupled with the word “flamboyant” thanks to his colourful style and his use of comedy in the lecture hall. He had been made a professor at the age of only 29, which helped him, he said in an interview in 2008, not to take himself too seriously.

“I’m not the Oracle of Delphi, you know,” he said. “Humour was my survival mechanism, for example, when I was catapulted into a professorship in my 20s and thrown into an auditorium – let’s call it a lions’ den – in front of a thousand students, most of whom were hardly five years younger than me. I used simple tricks: pink socks, standing on top of the lectern, jokes about Limburgers. I still come across students from those times today, and they all remember those amusing details.”

Far from being a clown, however, Nuyens’ experience travel-

ling the world to study healthcare systems for WHO made him an informed critic, and he remained a critic back home.

In 2013 he published, with journalist and politician Hugo De Ridder, the book Dokter, ik heb ook iets te zeggen (Doctor, I Also Have Something to Say) about the way patients were treated by the health-care system, in particular by hospital doctors.

That led to the creation of the Kievit Group, a think-tank of health-care experts devoted to bringing about changes in the system. Nuyens, by now returned to live in Belgium after his years with WHO, was a key adviser to Flemish welfare minister Jo Vandeurzen – who happens to be a Limburger.

“According to several studies, Belgians should be happy with their health care,” Nuyens said in another interview last year.

“But that sometimes has more to do with the questions asked than with the reality. Take, for instance, the growing social health gap. People who are less educated are not only more often sick, they also have a lower life expectancy. That’s a scandal for our welfare system.” \ Alan Hope

flanders today, a weekly English-language newspaper, is an initiative of the flemish region and is financially supported by the flemish authorities.

The logo and the name Flanders Today belong to the Flemish Region (Benelux Beeldmerk nr 815.088). The editorial team of Flanders Today has full editorial autonomy regarding the content of the newspaper and is responsible for all content, as stipulated in the agreement between Corelio Publishing and the Flemish authorities.

Editor Lisa Bradshaw dEPuty Editor Sally Tipper contriButing Editor Alan Hope suB Editor Linda A Thompson agEnda Robyn Boyle, Georgio Valentino art dirEctor Paul Van Dooren PrEPrEss Corelio AdPro contriButors Daan Bauwens, Rebecca Benoot, Derek Blyth, Leo Cendrowicz, Katy Desmond, Andy Furniere, Diana Goodwin, Julie Kavanagh, Catherine Kosters, Toon Lambrechts, Katrien Lindemans, Ian Mundell, Anja Otte, Tom Peeters, Daniel Shamaun, Senne Starckx, Christophe Verbiest, Débora Votquenne, Denzil Walton gEnEral managEr Hans De Loore PuBlisHEr Corelio Publishing NV

Editorial addrEss Gossetlaan 30 - 1702 Groot-Bijgaarden tel 02 373 99 09 editorial@flanderstoday.eu suBscriPtions tel 03 560 17 49 subscriptions@flanderstoday.eu or order online at www.flanderstoday.eu advErtising 02 373 83 57 advertising@flanderstoday.eu vErantwoordElijkE uitgEvEr Hans De Loore

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january 28, 2015

Feeling at home, at school

new report should improve integration system continued from page 1

take part in reception classes, known in Dutchasonthaalklasvooranderstaligenieuwkomers, or Okan.

“We help to find them a place in an Okan, where a personalised study programme will mainstream them as soon as possible,” Van Raemdonck says. This programme is only available to youngsters who have been in Flanders for less than a year and generally lasts one academic year, though extensions are possible.

According to the Flemish Agency for Education Services, the number of Okan students doubled from 1,592 to 3,120 in the years between 2007 and 2012. Antwerp province received the most students: 1,250 in the 2011-12 school year, or 40% of the total number that year.

One of the Okans in Antwerp, Stedelijk Lyceum Offerande in the Kiel neighbourhood, recently attracted media attention

© Photos courtesy sint-Guido Instituut

Okan students take trips around Flanders to get to know the region better

Students are often sad to leave because they feel lonely outside our environment with a special project that combats the issue of unauthorised absences while also helping students who live in poverty.

If students attend every class and arrive on time, they earn a Marco coin – named because this Okan was previously called Marco Polo. With these coins, students can pay for school materials or clothing at a little second-hand shop in the school.

“A considerable number of our students, especially asylum-seekers, miss classes when they have an appointment with a social aid agency or lawyer, and they are unexcused absences when they forget to bring the legal certificate,” explains co-ordinator Joris Verlinden. “Refugees also sometimes suffer from psychosocial problems because of traumatic experiences, which makes it difficult for them to come to school on a regular basis.”

Students also sometimes have to help family members who don’t speak any Dutch with administrative matters.

The initiative also helps students in poverty by providing cheap school materials and clothing – especially important in winter.

“Paying for stuff in the shop with the coins they’ve earned also gives them a sense of pride,” says Verlinden.

He notes that the school sometimes offers something for free “in urgent cases”. The shop is run by students on a transition programme that prepares Okan students for further studies related to the retail sector.

The Marco coin initiative is one example of the innovation required by Okan teachers to deal with their complex groups of students.

Pupils cannot just be put in classes according to their age; they are mostly assembled in groups with similar academic abilities.

While some are unable to read or write in their own languages, others have received

high-quality education in their home countries. Stedelijk Lyceum Offerande is home to 12 classes of on average 10 students. Those who cannot read receive lessons in smaller groups.

The teachers don’t work towards concrete requirements for pupils to move on to the next level, as they do in the regular education system. Their aim is to achieve ontwikkelingsdoelen, or development goals, which are primarily related to the Dutch language but also concern ICT, mathematics and social skills. These goals are meant to not only help pupils communicate in Dutch but also to adapt to Flemish society.

To reach these goals, the Okan teams often set up special projects. The Stedelijk Lyceum Offerande, for example, organises plays and a social project in which the pupils help youngsters with a disability.

In the Sint-Guido-Instituut Okan in the Brussels district of Anderlecht, which has about 80 students, the staff have set up cooking workshops, fashion shows, city walks, visits to museums and mock political elections.

“We always devote attention to youngsters’ specific talents,” says Els Delaere, continuation co-ordinator at the Sint-GuidoInstituut. She mainly helps pupils with their choice of a future school career in the regular system and follows up their situation for six years – but most intensively during the first year after they leave the Okan.

To get a concrete idea of the study disciplines in regular education, Okan students do regular snuffelstages, or exploration internships.

This means they follow lessons in a regular class for a week, to examine whether this would be the right option for them after Okan.

After one academic year, the continuation co-ordinator suggests a certain study discipline in regular secondary education or adult education, employment training or a prolonged stay at Okan.

Integration into regular classes does not always go smoothly. Part of the problem, according to Delaere, is that pupils don’t always get enough time to adapt to the new environment.

“In schools where teachers have little experience with students who speak a foreign language, the students don’t always manage to overcome their shyness at speaking Dutch in class,” she explains. “Unlike experienced

Okan staff, other teachers are often not familiar with the emotional problems of students who risk losing the roof over their head or being sent back to their country of origin.”

Delaere also points out that Okan offers the youngsters a secure place among peers, while they are often considered “different” in regular schools. “Students are often sad when they leave Okan, even if only for a holiday, because they feel lonely outside our environment,” she says.

To give Okan pupils more confidence in their futures and to improve the reputation of the Okan system, Delaere has set up a poster project using role models. The posters feature former students who have achieved a diploma in subjects such as pharmacy, civil engineering and interpreting.

She also involves former students in improving the communication with parents of current students by providing translations of essential information. “For example, former students translate the students’ school reports into about 30 languages,” she says.

Despite all the work done at Okan schools, there is still a considerable number of students who cannot find their place in Flemish society. In particular, the older group of 16- to 18-year-old newcomers have difficulties building a future in Flan-

a new campaign featuring former Okan students gives current students hope for the future

ders, which is why the government of Flanders has asked the Centre for Language and Education (CTO) to look for ways to improve the Okan programme for this target group.

Their research was recently published. “One of our major findings is that too many Okan students are referred to professional secondary education only on the basis of their language skills,” says CTO researcher Liesbeth De Bruyne.

According to the report, there is not enough attention paid to students’ other competences, which may make them more suited to other study tracks. The researchers suggest introducing a portfolio that lists students’ skills, sort of like a CV. To further answer the needs of newcomers , the report suggests adjusting teacher training in higher education. “Teaching studies could be extended, with courses in how to teach Okan students specifically or in how to deal with diversity in the classroom in general,” explains De Bruyne. “The current system relies too much on the willingness of teachers to take extra training voluntarily.”

According to the report, one negative consequence of the flexible regulation concerning the development goals is that many newly qualified teachers lack a clear foundation and have to find out too much for themselves. More extensive education and training could help improve this situation, as could more exchange of knowledge between Okan staff.

The researchers also ascertained a lack of contact between the different groups who come into contact with Okan students – like social aid agencies, pupil support agencies and Okan staff – so they organised regular meetings where experiences could be exchanged.

To make sure that students are not confused by the various advice and demands of several organisations, the CTO report recommends linking them with a single contact person who follows up their situation during their entire education – preferably someone from integration services.

Another recommendation is to improve the collaboration of Okan with the Flemish public employment agency VDAB, to streamline the future integration of students on the labour market. “VDAB could, for example, organise a series of workshops on bottleneck professions,” says De Bruyne.

There should also be more co-operation with organisations that provide leisure activities, as well, notes De Bruyne, since such activities bring Okan students out of their usual environment. “Schools that have a close relationship with the local community, known as broad schools, are an ideal way to reduce the social isolation of Okan students,” she says.

In recent months, the CTO has started a large-scale, three-year research project at the request of the government of Flanders. Researchers are working with experts from the universities of Antwerp, Ghent and Leuven to map the entire reception education system – analysing the structural organisation, teaching methods and financial means of Okans in both primary and secondary education.

The researchers will also follow up the situation of certain Okan students over three years to examine how successfully they are able to integrate into the regular school system and into society in general.

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5th colUMn Deficit dynamics

Budgetalert,onceagain.Prime minister Charles Michel (MR) last week announced that this country’s budget deficit for 2014 will likely be higher than expected: 3.3% rather than the 2.9% that was forecast.

That may sound like a minor difference, but as the EU sets the limit at 3%, it is anything but. If Belgium does not stick to the 3% limit, it faces stricter European scrutiny. As has become customary, the announcement was an occasion for a round of scapegoating. Michel pointed the finger at the regions and communities, which, unlike the federal state, have not met their targets. The prime minister’s message was particularly uncomfortable for his coalition partners N-VA, CD&V and Open VLD, who between them also form the Flemish government coalition.

Flemish budget minister Annemie Turtelboom (Open VLD) was in for a particularly rough ride, as she had to explain the Flemish deficit of more than €800 million – or rather €500 million, one day and some creative accounting later.

The explanation came as no surprise. The deficit resulted from an EU rule that major investments, such as road or education infrastructure, have to be included in the budget as a whole, rather than spread out over several years.

Minister-president Geert Bourgeois’ N-VA is not amused at this situation nor at Turtelboom’s handling of it. It is particularly painful as Flanders has always prided itself on its budgetary orthodoxy, calling itself “the best pupil in class”.

To add insult to injury, Guy Vanhengel (Open VLD), budget minister of the Brussels-Capital Region government, boasted about his own clean sheet. This was again annoying to N-VA, the nationalists who still gnash their teeth at the generous treatment the capital region received – at the expense of Flanders – in the last state reform.

With all this discord between different governments and parties, one would almost forget that there is an opposition to hold the respective governments responsible.

The federal government now hopes for some clemency on the part of Europe because of some “structural interventions”.

With Michel blaming the regions, Brussels pointing to Flanders and N-VA annoyed at the liberals Turtelboom and Vanhengel, one thing Belgium cannot present, however, is a united front. \ Anja Otte

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Belgian pavilion unveiled

trade minister presents Belgium’s design for Expo milan 2015 derek Blyth More articles by Derek \ flanderstoday.eu

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ederal foreign trade minister Kris Peeters unveiled the design of the Belgian pavilion at the forthcoming Expo Milan 2015 last week, precisely 100 days before the exhibition is due to begin.

The Belgian pavilion in Milan was designed by Patrick Genard, a Belgian architect based in Barcelona, while the scenography is the work of Marc Belderbos, who lectures in the architecture department of the University of Leuven.

The pavilion aims “to combine a Belgian identity with the exhibition’s themes of sustainability and technological innovation,” said Peeters’ office.

The expo is being held from 1 May to 31 October under the

slogan “Feeding the planet, energy for life”. It will look at the links between technology, innovation, creativity, food and nutrition.

Belgium's pavilion is modeled on a small city, with green spaces separating “neighbourhoods" and featuring transport stations, bodies of water and a city centre. It will be an example of urban planning, including information on energy demands, use of materials and water consumption.

The design is a rounded atrium enclosing the city centre, with a wooden-enclosed farm, showcasing Belgium's agricultural sector, jutting off from it (pictured). The pavilion will also include a restaurant and chocolate showcase.

Peeters was accompanied in the presentation by fellow Christiandemocrat Leo Delcroix, who has been put in charge of Belgium’s pavilion for the second time.

Delcroix also held the post in 2012

for the Shanghai Expo, where Belgium closed the event with a profit for the first time since Brussels hosted the World Fair in 1958.

Delcroix, however, came under scrutiny by Belgium’s Court of Auditors for the financial organisation of the Shanghai pavilion, which the court said suffered a lack of transparency in the books and several oral agreements made with sponsors that were never formalised via contracts. Delcroix said at the time that several of the accusations were regarding demands that were “simply unrealistic”.

Some 145 countries are due to take part in the Milan Expo, which is expected to attract 20 million visitors and create 70,000 temporary jobs.

City of Antwerp refuses permit for anti-Islam march

About 6,000 to lose unemployment benefits

Antwerp mayor Bart De Wever rejected a request by the Flemish anti-Islam movement Pegida Vlaanderen ( formerly called Vlativa) to stage a march planned for last Monday. A counter demonstration by the organisation Hart boven hard was also banned.

The new Flemish anti-Islam organisation, inspired by Germany’s Pegida, applied for a permit to hold a march on 26 January in protest at what it sees as the growing influence of Islam in Belgium.

But police advised the mayor to ban the march due to the heightened terror threat, following the shooting of two terrorists in Verviers earlier this month. “In the current context, both demonstrations pose a risk to public safety and would require a large police presence,” the mayor’s office said

Some 6,000 people in Brussels and Flanders are due to be cut off from unemployment benefits later this month as a change in the inschakelingsuitkering, or activation benefits, comes into effect.

The activation allowance, previously known as wachtuitkering, or waiting benefits, covered those who did not qualify for regular unemployment benefits because they had not worked long enough in the country. This included students graduating from secondary school or higher education who had not yet found a job.

The previous federal government put a time limit of three years on the allowance, to encourage people to actively look for work. Now the allowance will be scrapped entirely.

Jef Maes of the socialist union ABVV argued that the new rules

in a statement. “This is why the police advised against allowing the demonstrations to take place, and the mayor has followed that advice.”

The two organisations insist that the demonstrations will go ahead at some time in the future. “Even if the demonstration doesn’t take place until the terror alert threat has been lowered, we intend to protest,” said Wim Van Rooy of Pegida Vlaanderen in an interview with VRT. Meanwhile, Hart boven hard called on its supporters to protest using social media platforms on Monday. “We remain concerned about a movement that calls into question our inter-cultural society,” the organisation said. It plans a march in Brussels on 29 March, according to its website. \ DB

© ingimage

are unfair because there is no work to be found in some parts of the country, particularly for people with few qualifications. “I’m talking about the big cities in Flanders, like Ghent and Antwerp, along with Liège and Hainaut in Wallonia,” he told VRT radio.

Most of the people affected by the new ruling live in Wallonia, where some 14,000 are due to lose the benefits, compared to about 3,000 in Flanders and 3,000 in Brussels.

\ DB

Residents who fight in Syria could lose asylum status

Government to use supermarket data to determine price index

Theo Francken, the state secretary for asylum and migration, will table a bill in parliament this week aimed at preventing potential terrorists returning to Belgium from Syria.

Francken (N-VA) wants to remove the right to return from those who had earlier been granted asylum status. The decision to ban those granted asylum would be made by the Commission for Refugees and Stateless People.

Francken also said that he wants to get tough on asylum-seekers who cause disruption in reception centres. He says their application could be rejected if they cause serious trouble while waiting to be processed.

The federal government will this month begin using scanner data provided by supermarkets to help calculate the consumer price index, Kris Peeters, the minister for economy and consumer affairs, has announced.

The use of data direct from checkouts will help avoid the inaccuracies involved in other methods of gathering price information, Peeters’ office said in a statement.

The prices will also be updated in real time.

The data will be provided by the three largest supermarket chains – Delhaize, Carrefour and Colruyt – and will cover nine products that together make up 3% of the basket of goods used to calculate

© blg/Het nieuwsblad

“We are going to make it possible to remove asylum status from people who disrupt public order or become a threat to national security,” he said at N-VA’s New Year gathering last weekend. “These people would then be here illegally and should not be allowed back into the Schengen zone.” \ DB

the index: rice, flour, pasta, baked goods, whole, semi-skimmed and skimmed milk, cheese, eggs and sugar. Starting in 2016, the system will be extended to use scanner data for goods representing 24.5% of the basket.

Information will still be gathered from other sales points, including low-price supermarkets and independent retailers. In those cases, the statistics department will continue to use existing methods of information gathering.

“This new manner of working will provide us with an index based on objective, real and reliable source material for the calculation of the evolution of consumer prices,” Peeters said. \ AH

january 28, 2015

“Built on goodwill”

ghent mayor gives locals big responsibilities and even bigger sense of community daan Bauwens More articles by Daan \ flanderstoday.eu

Ghent mayor Daniël Termont’s efforts to make his city a more sustainable and healthy one have earned him plaudits from a London think thank in the form of a nomination for the 2014 World Mayor Prize. Still, trailblazing policy efforts aside, Termont says his biggest contribution to the city has been a psychological one

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ver since Lonely Planet discovered the capital of East Flanders in 2009, there’s no travel guide that hasn’t added Ghent to its list of favourites. The city’s international reputation might soon receive an additional boost, but this time not for its merits as a travel destination.

Ghent’s Daniël Termont has made it to the final round of the 2014 World Mayor Prize, awarded every other year to an outstanding mayor anywhere in the world by the London-based City Mayors Foundation, an international think tank dedicated to local government.

Termont himself isn’t exactly sure why he is in the final three vying for the prize, whittled down from a shortlist of 26 mayors worldwide. “What I know is that the City Mayor Foundation applauds my approach to intra-European migration, urban development and international development plans,” he says.

www.worldmayor.com

the sharing economy is booming in this city.”

Among other priorities, Termont’s policy vision is based on sharing responsibilities with inhabitants.

“Big responsibilities,” he emphasises. He gives the example of a medieval abbey in the heart of the city. “It’s beautiful and interesting, but we don’t have the time nor people to develop the site.

The neighbourhood committee suggested opening it on weekends and serving coffee to visitors. We agreed, handed them the key to the site and took care of the needed subsidies.”

And Termont says similar project are mushrooming across the city.

“People can take initiative; they don’t have to wait for elections to cast a vote on how they want to see the city changed. Plus, projects like these bring neighbourhoods closer together.”

Termont also wants to stay as close to residents as possible, and he means it. He says his office answers every email he gets within 10 minutes and, when invited to neighbourhood parties, he does whatever he can to make an appearance. “I can’t attend them all, but, believe me, I attend an awful lot,” he says. “Citizens need to have the feeling that the door to the city hall is always open, that we’re close and approachable.”

But all that glitters is not gold.

People don’t have to wait for elections to cast a vote on how they want to see the city change Termont thinks his World Mayor nomination sprang not only from the policies he has adopted, but from the international exposure the city has been getting as of late. “Ghent is a pioneer in many fields,” he says. “It was the first in Europe to ban cars from most of the centre, the first to sign the climate-neutral covenant. I am invited to congresses around the world to talk about those moves.

We’re quite visible on the international stage.”

Termont says one of his own greatest contributions to the city has been a psychological one. “I have given people a sense of pride in their city,” he says, “and, more than ever before, Ghent is built on goodwill. There’s togetherness. I motivate people to work together, to organise more parties and celebrations. More contact leads to a strong social life; it fosters innovation and creativity. No wonder

Poverty looms beneath the surface of the historical centre’s splendour. According to stats from the OCMW social aid agency, Ghent has the highest poverty rate in the country, with one in five children growing up below the poverty line.

Moreover, the rate is rising.

“I cannot do anything about the increase because it’s a global trend,” Termont says. “The poor get poorer and the rich richer. But our high poverty rate can be explained.

We have always had socialists in the city council, who wanted to take care of the underprivileged.

Consequently, Ghent has the highest percentage of social housing units in Belgium – more than 13%. This high percentage of social housing, quite logically, attracts people with a low income or on unemployment benefits.”

Termont points out that the city has faced other demographic challenges since he was elected. “In

© Courtesy stad Gent

Daniël Termont is one of three finalists vying for the world Mayor Prize, awarded every other year to an outstanding mayor anywhere in the world

the last eight years, approximately 25,000 Eastern Europeans – mostly unemployed Roma – migrated to our city,” he says. “Those people have the right to come here; we’re all fortune-seekers.”

Still, he says, the city has reached a pivotal moment. “There is no space left for decent housing or proper schooling,” he admits. “We cannot offer any quality of life to new arrivals. But we have no instruments at hand to stop the flow. Recently, this city council started social economy projects in Bulgaria, in the four villages where most of our immigrants come from. Creating jobs at home,

we want to discourage them from coming here.”

Ghent’s increasing popularity among other population groups has also come at a cost. As its trendy reputation has led to the gentrification of local neighbourhoods, house prices have more than doubled over the last decade.

The result has been that average young families can’t afford to buy a house and have moved away from the city centre.

At the same time, the city centre is becoming a tourist trap of sorts. Is the mayor concerned that his city will soon resemble a cultural Disneyland, in the image of Bruges,

where tourists have been known to ask when the gates to the park will be closed?

While Termont says he can’t do anything about the rising house prices, he firmly disagrees that Ghent will ever turn into another Bruges. “Ghent could never turn into a museum,” he says. “Look around you; this office has been the office of the mayor for the last four centuries. In Bruges, it would have been turned into a museum by now. Here, we still live and work in our monuments.”

The World Mayor Prize will be announced on 3 February

\7

\ BusIness

weeK in bUsiness Banking Degroof The country’s largest private banking group has signed a letter of intent to merge with its smaller competitor Petercam. The deal is expected to be finalised in the second half of this year.

express delivery DHl Parcel

The local affiliate of the German courier and parcel delivery company is launching an e-commerce delivery service. The new venture, which includes opening up to 1,600 outlets this year to back up the system, will be in direct competition with Bpost and Kiala, an affiliate of UPS.

Fast food McDonald’s

The US-based fast food chain plans to open three more outlets in Flanders this year, in Groot-Bijgaarden, Antwerp and Mol. The outlets are part of the chain’s €18 million investment programme that includes hiring up to 375 employees in 2015.

Food Vandemoortele

The Ghent-based manufacturer of food products ranging from margarine to frozen bakery has acquire the Italian Lanterna Agritech Group, the country’s leading producer of frozen bread, with production units in Genoa, Ravenna and Padua.

Gaming Casinos

The government has approved plans for the opening of the country’s 10th casino, in Antwerp. Up to five development bids have already been received by city authorities.

retail aveve

The Leuven-based gardening and agriculture products retailer, with sales of over €1.2 billion annually, has taken over the Dutch Arie Blok animal feed distribution group and producer of 200,000 tonnes a year of preparations for pets.

retail H&M

The Swedish apparel group plans to open H&M Home outlets in Ghent and Bruges within the next two months, featuring interior decoration items. Further openings in Brussels and Antwerp are slated for later.

steel Ghent

The Port of Ghent authority is investing €9 million to build a quay next to the ArcelorMittal steel works to handle steel scrap and slag from the blast furnaces. The investment comes in addition to the €90 million that ArcelorMittal has earmarked for its Ghent plant this year.

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Asylum seekers have 90% more chance of work in Flanders study points to region’s “urban character” and integration policies alan Hope More articles by alan \ flanderstoday.eu

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sylum-seekers who come to live in Flanders have a 90% better chance of finding work than those who live in Brussels or Wallonia, according to a major study carried out for the federal migration centre. The study examined the cases of 70,000 asylum-seekers who came to Belgium between 2000 and 2010.

According to the study, one explanation is that economic circumstances in Flanders are more beneficial towards job-seekers in general. In addition, Flanders’ more urban character – a larger proportion of the population lives in town and cities – makes it easier for them to find work.

At the same time, the regions show differences in their integration policies. Integration measures, including language lessons and social

© Courtesy radio 1

orientation, have been compulsory for migrants to Flanders since 2004, whereas in Wallonia the measures have been in place only since 2009 and on a voluntary basis.

The figures for asylum-seekers reflect the case

for other migrants. Even for native Belgians, Flanders offers 50% more chance of finding work than Wallonia, pointed out lead researcher Johan Wets of the Leuven labour research institute HIVA. Of those who arrived in Flanders between 2003 and 2006, 57% started off living on benefits. Four years later that number more than halved, while the number of employed went up from 19% to 55%. “They find their way to the labour market, but it happens very slowly, and their position is vulnerable,” Wets said.

According to previous research, refugees and asylum-seekers tend to be steered toward jobs that require little experience and fewer language skills such as gardening, waste industries and cleaning.

Limburg pears being smuggled BSO diploma an advantage on labour market, says SSL into Russia despite ban The Russian ban on EU exports of a variety of agricultural products is being widely evaded, according to reports, via routes through Belarus and Kazakhstan. This includes Limburg pears being found in Russia, despite the ban.

According to the Belgian Fruit Auction in Sint-Truiden, the majority of local growers have nothing to do with the smuggling of their fruit. Flanders’ fruit growers, concentrated largely in Limburg, were among those hardest hit when Russia imposed its ban last August. The EU paid growers a premium not to harvest their crops of apples and pears, so as not to flood the market and depress prices.

The Fruit Auction has confirmed that lorries from Russia and its neighbouring states are being loaded daily in Limburg. According to investigators, the shipments arrive at their original destination,

such as Belarus, where their certificate of origin is changed to allow them to cross the Russian border.

“The pears that are supposed to go to Belarus or Kazakhstan are checked by the federal food agency, which issues the necessary papers,” said exporter Geert Schoofs. “Everything that leaves here is perfectly in order with the rules. It could be that certain clients in other countries are attempting to benefit from the situation.”

Bart Wijgaerts of the Haspengouw Auction commented that growers in Limburg are not taking part in the practice themselves. “All we know is that the boycott continues to weigh heavily on our business. It concerns us that a false impression is being created that people here are working around the boycott and making a fortune.

Nothing could be further from the truth.” \ AH

Students graduating from secondary education with a diploma in professional education (BSO) are finding jobs faster than those with other kinds of diplomas, according to the Steunpunt Studie- en Schoolloopbanen (SSL), or the Policy Research Centre for Educational and School Careers.

SSL researchers compared employment upon students’ entry onto the labour market in several European countries. A professional-oriented study track guaranteed a relatively smooth transition from school to work, according to the study. Graduates with a BSO diploma found jobs faster than those who entered the labour market without a diploma but also than those from other study disciplines in secondary and higher education.

The study also showed, however, that those with a diploma in general education (ASO) stay in

their jobs for longer periods of time. A possible explanation, SSL researcher Jeroen Lavrijsen told jobat.be, is that a BSO programme in Flanders has a very specific character, and graduates often lack certain general skills.

“BSO graduates are, therefore, less employable if new technology is introduced and they have to follow extra training, for example,” said Lavrijsen. He pointed out the advantages of the Scandinavian system, where students choose between general and professional education at a later age – 16 as opposed to 14 in Flanders. BSO students there can also choose programmes from ASO. Lavrijsen thinks there should be a revaluation of the BSO diploma, which is now too often seen, he said, as an option for those who can’t keep up in ASO.

\ Andy Furniere

Muyters and social partners agree on employment target groups The Flemish social partners – government, trade unions and employers – are ready to sign an agreement on a reform of employment target groups, namely young people, the over-55s and people with a handicap.

Last week the government of Flanders approved a proposal by labour minister Philippe Muyters; the other two partners have until March to provide responses. “I’m happy to give them that time,” Muyters said in a statement.

The target group policy is part of the overall labour market policy and gives special consideration to those groups who have difficulty finding jobs. In its governing accord, the new government made it clear it wanted to see the policy simplified and restricted to those three main groups.

The young people group is limited to those under 25 earning less than €2,300 a month gross, in one

of two groups: those who left secondary school without a diploma, and those who have a secondary school diploma but no higher education.

Employers who take on young people answering this description will receive a discount on the social security charges they have to pay, amounting to €1,150 a quarter for the first year, €1,000 a quarter in the second year and €400 a quarter in the third and final year.

For older employees, the discount is available for both new hires and for retaining existing employees and is split into two groups: those aged 55 to 59 and those over 60. For new hires in the younger group the discount amounts to €1,150 a quarter for the first two years and €600 a quarter thereafter until the legal retirement age.

For the older group, the sums are €1,500 and €1,150 a quarter. For employees who are already

employed, the employer discount is €600 and €1,150 a quarter for as long as they remain in work until the legal retirement age.

For people with a work handicap – the sort of condition that makes finding or keeping a job difficult or impossible – the situation under the present Flemish Support Premium remains unchanged.

“Young people need to find jobs as early as possible,” Muyters (N-VA) said. “The longer they wait before finding their first job, the more difficult it becomes to find anything. In addition, we have chosen the over-55s because all of us will have to continue to work longer if we want to keep the social security system operating.”

Assuming the social partners agree in March, the new rules could become law in the summer, to come into force on 1 January, 2016. \ AH

\ eDuCaTIOn

january 28, 2015

Lord of the flies

weeK in innovation

flemish entrepreneur turns organic waste into something useful débora votquenne More articles by Débora \ flanderstoday.eu

www.milliBEtEr.BE

S

upermarkets have to deal with hundreds of kilos of unsold organic waste each day, and it’s costing them a fortune to get rid of it. In the meantime, in Aartselaar, Antwerp province, Johan Jacobs keeps thousands of hungry fly larvae, all dreaming of rotten tomatoes and salads.

The supermarket brings its unsold food to Jacobs’ company, Millibeter, where Jacobs gives the food to his larvae. Once they are big enough, he sells them to a company that uses them to make things such as industrial cleaning products.

At first, Jacobs’ career offered a completely different perspective.

He graduated with a Master’s in international politics and was a diplomat for about 10 years. Going from diplomacy to organic waste management is a rather unlikely career move, you might think.

“When I was working in Morocco as a diplomat, I was looking into alternative agricultural techniques,” Jacobs explains. “That’s where I learned about the role flies can play in dealing with our waste problem.”

Although the flies weren’t a suitable solution for the Moroccan situation, Jacobs couldn’t let go of the idea. So in 2012, he decided to come back to Belgium, quit his job and start a colony of flies at his home in Antwerp.

More than four in 10 Flemings (42%) are dissatisfied with their sleep patterns and 30% feel they have sleep disorders, according to a survey by the Christian Mutuality (CM) among 3,300 of its members.

More than one in four said they had trouble concentrating during the day, and 13% often feel tired when driving.

Of the respondents who said they were dissatisfied with their sleep, 74% often feel tired for the whole day. This lack of sleep leads to tiredness, concentration problems and irritability and makes people less resistant to illness.

CM’s Slaapwel platform aims to clear up some sleep myths and provide advice. \ www.cm.be/slaapwel

“Makerspace” opens at Diepenbeek’s tech centre © Didier Descouens

The larvae of the black soldier fly eats up household waste and produces valuable fertiliser in the process

compared to the amount of food supermarkets throw away. So the idea is to scale up.

In a room where the temperature is kept at an average of 27°C, Jacobs keeps a colony of black soldier flies in boxes. “This is where the whole process starts,” he says. “We could have used the bottle fly or housefly for this project, but with the black soldier fly there is no risk to humans

Our generation can’t say they weren’t aware the environment was in such bad shape It took some time to get funding to finance the project. But after about two years, Jacobs moved his colony of flies from his home to a bigger space in Aartselaar. “We are now in the pilot phase,” he says. “Once we pass this stage, we’ll go on the market.”

Today Millibeter grows about a million larvae a week, enough to process hundreds of kilos of organic waste each day. That’s nothing

Flemings have trouble sleeping

or animals if they get loose.”

Unlike the black soldier fly, the bottle fly is known for being a transmitter of bacteria. Moreover, this type of fly would never survive our cold temperatures.

The flies lay their eggs in the grow boxes. Jacobs harvests the eggs and puts them in an incubator so they grow into larvae. Once they’re big enough, they’re fed the organic waste. “This is the last phase for

them,” Jacobs says. “Once they’re big enough, they go into this big strainer to separate them from the composted waste.

“It hasn’t been easy to find suitable machinery to process all this,” he says. “The things we need may already exist but are obviously not used for the same purposes. So we need to convince the supplier of those industrial machines to sell it to us.” But some parts could not be bought anywhere. “The incubator boxes, for example, were handmade. Actually, they’re produced to be used in cafes or restaurants, but with minor adjustments, we were able to customise them and use them to grow our larvae.”

In the meantime, the larvae are separated from the composted organic waste. “The next step is to freeze the larvae, so our partner can pick them up and use them to produce industrial cleaning products or fish food,” Jacobs explains.

“The filtered compost will then be used as high quality fertiliser.”

Nothing goes to waste, and low quality products are turned into high quality feedstock. “We sense that the world is ready for this kind of innovation,” says Jacobs. “There

is a lot of interest in our project, not only from businesses but also from the government.” This doesn't surprise Jacobs: “Our waste problem is imminent. Something has to be done, and once Millibeter is fully operational, we could very well be part of the solution.”

At Millibeter they are rounding up their R&D phase, and once all bottlenecks have been identified, they can scale up the project, draw up a detailed business plan and present it to their investors and partners. But as there are supermarkets already involved, Jacobs is not expecting too many problems on that side.

As he concludes the tour of the company, one question remains unanswered: How do you go from a being diplomat to being a pioneer in organic waste management? “It’s a matter of taking one’s responsibility,” Jacobs explains. “I have two small children and they deserve a beautiful and healthy future. A clean environment is part of that.

Our generation can’t say they weren’t aware our environment was in such a bad shape. So I am taking my responsibility and trying to do something about it.”

Google names Aristoco one of world’s most promising startups www.cuBigo.com

The CEO of tech company Aristoco, Geert Houben, has become the first Belgian ever to be invited by ICT giant Google to participate in its prestigious boot camp BlackBox Connect.

Google has ranked Aristoco among the 15 most promising startup projects in the world based on its application Cubigo. Aristoco, located in Diepenbeek, Limburg, is a spin-off of Hasselt University.

Cubigo (pictured) is a user-friendly platform for people who need care, such as the elderly or handicapped. The technology has a number of appli-

cations for use at home, like starting up a video conversation with a doctor or ordering a meal.

Thanks to the innovation, Houben is part of a select group of entrepreneurs invited to take part in BlackBox Connect. The two-week boot camp for non-US technology startups takes place next month in Silicon Valley in the US state of California, the heart of the global ICT sector.

“It is a major opportunity to speed up the launch of Cubigo in the US and elsewhere,” said Houben.

Cubigo has already won awards in Belgium and the Netherlands. \ Andy Furniere

Hasselt University (UHasselt) and PXL University College have opened the Makerspace at the Technology Centre in Diepenbeek. Makerspace is a multidisciplinary tech lab open to students, staff and the public, who can experiment with a 3D printer and laser cutter or follow a technology workshop. “Through initiatives like Makerspace, we want to encourage more youngsters to choose the STEM studies and thus strengthen the Flemish knowledge economy,” said UHasselt rector Luc De Schepper. Makerspace, which received a Flemish government subsidy of €100,000, should also allow more collaboration between the institutions and across disciplines.

Trapped ions cause batteries to lose power Although batteries are becoming more powerful, they lose their effectiveness when they are constantly recharged.

This is a major reason why more people aren’t buying electric cars. Researchers at Antwerp University and the Collège de France in Paris have pinpointed the reason in the journal Nature Materials.

They examined the newest range of batteries, which work on the basis of lithium-rich layered oxides, and saw how metal ions “jumped” back and forth between the layers of metal and the layers of lithium. In the process of charging and discharging, these ions are sometimes trapped in the “cavities in between”, and there are thus fewer “free” metal ions available as the battery ages. \ AF

\9

\ lIVInG

weeK in edUcation universities may cut programmes Flanders’ universities must cut their offer of programmes, according to the Flemish government, which could lead to students having to travel to a different province to find their course of choice. The suggestion is part of efforts to cut the higher education budget.

Flemish education minister Hilde Crevits said universities had already, through the Flemish Inter-University Council, released a broad proposal noting three possibilities.

According to De Standaard, the options are: unite small groups of students following similar courses; increase collaboration between institutions and with institutions outside the region for specialised study programmes; and reduce the number of programmes on offer.

school adds courses to help staff port

The Royal Athenaeum in Antwerp is adding a programme on international transport and logistics to address the large number of vacancies at the city’s port and high youth unemployment. The secondary school’s new programme is the result of a collaboration with the AP University College, job and education contact point Talentenstroom, training fund Logos and the Centre for Adult Education in Antwerp.

The new course is meant for new secondary school graduates as well as those enrolled in higher education looking to change disciplines and young adults in general with a strong interest in the port sector.

ua leads european research network

Antwerp University (UA) is one of the driving forces behind the new Young European Research Universities Network (Yerun), which unites a group of young universities to encourage collaboration and mobility among students and staff. Yerun brings together 18 universities from 12 EU countries.

The Dutch University of Maastricht and the Spanish Autonomous University of Madrid join UA as the co-founders.

All member universities were launched less than 50 years ago and belong to the best universities worldwide for their age category, according to the QS Top 50 Under 50-ranking. UA, which ranked in 14th on the most recent list, is the only Belgian university in the new network, which will make it easier for staff and students to work or study at one of the partner institutions. \ AF

\ 10

Higher education starts early sixth-year students can now study part-time at a university college andy furniere More articles by andy \ flanderstoday.eu

S

tarting in March, finalyear students in secondary education can follow a course in developmental psychology from the teacher training programme at Karel de Grote University College in Antwerp.

Since the last academic year, these students have also been able to take courses in web technology or network architecture from the applied informatics study programme. Last year’s trial initiative was called Informatica Vooraf, or Informatics in Advance.

Pupils take certain lessons at the university college on Wednesday afternoons, but most of the lessons can be followed online.

© Courtesy karel de Grote university College

If they pass, they are granted an exemption for these courses in the first year of their Bachelor’s degree. The exemptions are not linked exclusively to Karel de Grote but are valid at all Flemish university colleges.

According to Inge Lories, spokesperson for Karel de Grote, 21 secondary school pupils regis-

teredlastyearfortheappliedinformatics courses (pictured). “Thirteen of them got an exemption for their higher education study and six received a half exemption,” she told Gazet van Antwerpen. “So the pass rate is quite high.” Fourteen of the students went on to register for the Bachelor’s degree at Karel de Grote.

According to Het Belang van Limburg, PXL University College in Hasselt is also looking into the possibility of inviting finalyear secondary school students to participate. “The legislation concerning higher education allows students from secondary education to achieve up to 10 study points in higher education,” explained Heidi Croes, director of education at PXL. “We want to provide this opportunity on a large scale but are still examining how best to implement it.”

Secondary school pupils have to pay a registration fee for higher education courses, but these are limited by law to €58 plus €0.70 per study point they earn.

Building sector wants own school to train future workers To boost the teaching of construction in Brussels, the sector federation is planning to build a specialised new school, according to brusselsnieuws.be. The building sector has been investing heavily in construction education in the capital to resolve the shortage of qualified workers.

“The return on investment in Brussels has been very low,” says Bruno Vandenwijngaert, directorgeneral of the Fund for Vocational Training in the Construction Industry. According to Vandenwijngaert, the offer of study programmes is too fragmented, with the result that the financial means are also fragmented. “The material is not representative of today’s innovative techniques,” he says.

As a result, study programmes attract few students, many of whom quit before graduating. In 2011, only 76 students in Brussels completed a construction degree.

What’s more, only a fraction of

© Courtesy Fédération Vaudoise des entrepreneurs

these graduates go on to work in construction. “After a year, only 3.9% of them work in the construction business,” says Jean-Christophe Vanderhaegen, director-general of the Brussels Construction Confederation. “But there are many vacancies, most of which are filled by people without a diploma.”

To improve this situation, Vander-

haegen and Vandenwijngaert have introduced the German system of alternating learning. In the system, pupils aged from 15 to 18 spend one day a week at school and four days at a business, while receiving a salary.

According to Vandenwijngaert, the programme is different from the Belgian “learning contract” because the work is specific to

what the student really wants to do and because the enterprises are better prepared to train the youngsters.

The construction federation established a trial project involving large enterprises, where a mentor was trained to work with youngsters. Fifteen students were able to work with the newest techniques and learned about things such as safety skills.

The five participating sixth-year students all decided to continue with a specialisation year in construction education. This year, about 90 students are expected to take part.

The federation is also looking for land and investment to build a prestigious specialised school in Brussels. The inspiration for the project is a school established by the Swiss construction sector (pictured), according to Vanderhaegen a state-of-the-art school where about 3,000 students can study all areas of construction. \ AF

Q&a PXL University College student Wendy Mellaerts won a Foundation Against Cancer thesis prize for her work on visual art therapy in palliative care What is visual arts therapy?

It’s a kind of therapy that helps people to deal with psychological problems by creating something.

It can consist of drawing, painting, clay modelling or another kind of handicraft. This way, people can express emotions that are difficult to formulate in words. I noticed during my internship in the palliative care sector that it also helps patients to leave their sickness behind for a while and concentrate on something positive. Another advantage is that the art increases patients’ self-esteem and provides

images of defining moments in a person’s life. Many patients in palliative care feel the need to evaluate their lives.

them with the opportunity to give a gift to their loved ones.

What sort of art did you create with patients?

It always depends on their interests and physical capacities. One woman who was in a very weak condition was very happy because she could make a Christmas card with her favourite colours as a gift for her family. I also introduced the “emotion circle”, which patients could fill with different colours, with each colour referring to a certain emotion they felt at that

moment. This also provided carers with an insight into the patient’s emotional state. Another concept is the “life line”, which features

Is visual art therapy already part of palliative care in Flanders?

Not particularly. Through a survey, I found that most staff members in Flanders’ palliative care sector were unable to explain exactly what visual art therapy entails.

It is mostly seen as just a way to offer patients some distraction or as therapy for children. Initiatives are necessary to ensure that visual art therapy becomes integrated into palliative care in Flanders, as is already the case in many AngloSaxon countries. \ interview by AF

january 28, 2015

Au naturel

weeK in activities

ghent shop introduces wine drinkers to a different kind of taste lisa Bradshaw More articles by lisa \ flanderstoday.eu

www.atastEaffair.com

W

ine shops and their knowledgeable staff are a dime a dozen in a foodloving region like Flanders. It takes something different to stand out in the crowd. And A Taste Affair is something different.

This was immediately apparent during a recent wine tasting in their shop. I knew the wines were organic, but that didn’t explain it. There was a sharpness to them that went beyond a high level of tannin. They were certainly acidic, but they were slightly sour as well, sort of like cracking open your first gueuze beer when you’ve only ever drunk lager.

The wines are not “organic”, I was soon corrected. “They are natural.”

Splitting hairs, you might think, but in fact, there’s something to the method A Taste Affair has embraced. The importer, which recently opened a retail shop on its site in the Dampoort area of Ghent, only deals in what they call natural wines – wines that are not only made from organic grapes but that contain no additives.

It turns out that when we consumers buy wines marked “organic”, this only ensures that the grapes used to make the wine are organic.

Other ingredients and additives do not have to be organic for the wine to get the organic label.

But at A Taste Affair, there are no additives in the wine, organic or otherwise. “The problem with the organic label,” says Anneleen Baetens, one of the 10 people co-operating to run A Taste Affair, “is that, legally, it’s all about the vineyard. What you do after the vineyard, in the cellar, doesn’t matter.”

So organic wines can be just as full of colorants, taste enhancers, yeast and sulphites as regular old wine.

a Taste affair sells only “natural wines” – organic and no additives

Sulphur dioxide is used in pretty much every wine you buy; it’s the additive that controls fermentation in the winemaking process and prevents oxidation thereafter.

The wines at A Taste Affair contain very little – and in some cases no – added sulpher. “Sulphur and yeast are both naturally present in the grape,” explains Baetens. “They are part of the natural fermentation process, which happens by itself. So we go one step further than organic and only work with producers who

add nothing to their wines. We just want the grapes.”

But fermenting is a tricky business and one that large-scale wine producers cannot leave to chance.

“The risks are much bigger with natural winemaking,” confirms Baetens, “because something can easily go wrong. The wine goes its own way; you don’t have much control over it.”

That’s why the importer, which supplies restaurants and retail outlets across Belgium, has spent

bite traditional alsace fortnight French cuisine may have a reputation for being heavy,withallitsbutterandcheese,buttheAlsace region adds new meaning to the word by adding things like meat and potatoes to the mix. What you end up with is a sumptuous hybrid cuisine all its own, with perfectly blended French-German fare that includes dishes such as flammeküche, a savoury bacon and onion tart, and choucroute royale, a combination of sauerkraut and loads of different types of meat, mostly pork.

This is the sixth consecutive year that the Traditional Alsace Fortnight has come to Brussels, and it tends to attract a lot of visitors. The six emblematic Brussels restaurants taking part are all located around the Grote Markt: Les Chapeliers, ’T Kelderke, L’Estaminet du Kelderke, La Rose Blanche, La Brouette and La Taverne du Passage.

The menus vary, but some typical dishes, aside from those mentioned above, include: head cheese, samosas stuffed with sauerkraut, prawns

and ginger, pea soup with smoked sausage, duck breastwithcaramelisedgingerbread,redcabbage with chestnuts, ragout of pork cheeks with Pinot Noir (the Alsace region is also very well known for its wine), perch fillet with sauerkraut and juniper berries and Munster cheese pie.

Finally, an Alsatian wouldn’t let you go home without first having dessert, and these Brussels restaurants are no different. They offer homemade blueberry cake and Alsatian-style apple pie served with Kirsch, a type of black morello cherry brandy, or a variety of sorbets.

Orchestrating the whole event is Michelinstar chef Michel Husser of Le Cerf restaurant in Marlenheim, Alsace. Like every year, Husser will rotate between the kitchens of the Brussels chefs and reveal to them what makes Alsatian cuisine so unique.

The Traditional Alsace Fortnight, which kicks off on 30 January, is an initiative of the Association for the Promotion of Alsace together with Brus-

its two-and-a-half years since launching working hard to make contacts. Small producers of natural wine can be difficult to find. If there are few producers of such natural wine, there are also few importers willing to buy it from you. But once the Ghent importer found a few, word of mouth spread.

Now that there is a shop, A Taste Affair is hosting more tastings to introduce its special product to the public. An event on 1 March will feature live music and a reading by Flemish author Kristien Hemmerechts. Customers can also order all their wines and other products online.

The business definitely has its work cut out for it because most customers will have never tasted wine like this. “If you are not used to it, it’s a little strange because we are used to wines that go down easy,” admits Baetens. “Natural wines have more complexity, and the acidity is usually higher. With classic wine, there is often a wood flavour added, and you taste the wood rather than the grape. With natural wines, you taste the grapes.

It’s like drinking grapes.”

This all sounds rather expensive, but in fact you can get a bottle of natural wine for as little as €8. If you have a budget and a menu, the friendly staff can help you out with suggestions. Since opening the shop, A Taste Affair has expanded into other products, specialising in raw and organic foods and drinks, including beer, crackers, honey, coffee and tea.

A Taste Affair is offering Flanders Today readers a 5% discount for in-store or online orders (with free home delivery) of at least €100. Just mention code FT2015. Offer is valid until 28 February

www.Promotion-alsacE.org

Viking Festival Organised in conjunction with the exhibition Vikings! at the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren (see p15), a weekend of related events includes a torchlight Viking procession, a Viking market, a Viking fashion show and Viking fighting demonstrations. 30 January to 1 February; free \ www.vikingfestival.be

Dubieus Design Indoor market for secondhand and vintage furniture, home accessories and collectibles from the 1950s to the present day. Come to the preview on Friday night to have your treasures valued by a professional appraiser.

30-31 January, Designcenter De Winkelhaak, Lange Winkelhaakstraat 26, Antwerp; preview €5; market free \ www.dubieusdesign.be

spring-sprong Festival Kids got too much energy from being stuck indoors?

Send them to this fun event, with 1,000 square metres of bouncy castles. Two sessions, 10.00-13.00 and 14.00-17.00.

Open to kids aged three to 14.

Older children can compete in Saturday evening games. 31 January & 1 February, Sporthal IHAM, Bautersemstraat 59, Mechelen; €5 \ www.moedigenvrij.be

antwerp Pateekes week A city-wide celebration of pastries and cakes! Pick up a “pateekes pass” for €10 in one of the participating local craft bakeries and enjoy a sweet treat in each location at a special price. 31 January to 11 February, across Antwerp \ www.antwerpenkoekenstad.be/pateekesweek

superbowl lXIX Are you a fan of American football? Then you won’t want to miss the biggest game of the year, between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks. Watch it in Leuven with hot dogs and bigmatch atmosphere. 1 February, 20.30, De Kemel, Oude Markt 23, Leuven, free

\ www.tinyurl.com/ superbowl-leuven

Geutelingen Festival

sels hotel and restaurant group Accueil et Tradition. The organisers spent plenty of time scouring Alsace in search of the region’s best products to bring to Brussels for the event.

Those lucky enough to get a reservation at one of the restaurants can indulge to their heart’s content knowing that for every Alsatian dish or bottle of wine ordered during the fortnight, €1 will be donated to Nativitas, an humanitarian association in Brussels. \ Robyn Boyle

A geuteling, a kind of pancake baked in a wood-fired oven, is a traditional speciality from the Flemish Ardennes. During this annual month-long festival, the oven museum in Brakel-Elst will be turning out freshly baked cakes, while guides explain the history behind them. Until 22 February, Ommegangstraat 3, Brakel-Elst (East Flanders) \ www.geutelingen.be

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january 28, 2015

The truth in-between

timeless themes are set in contemporary syria in new book by jeroen theunissen Rebecca Benoot More articles by rebecca \ flanderstoday.eu

WWW.JEROENTHEUNISSEN.BE

A

fter excursions into poetry and short stories, Jeroen Theunissen’s fifth novel offers a prime example of what the Ghent-born writer does best – exploring timeless topics against the backdrop of contemporary settings.

Although he teaches cultural history at the RITS film school in Brussels, Theunissen considers himself an author first. “A novel requires more time and determination than poetry or any other genre,” he says. “I try to stay close to current events in my novels, but I also try to add an extra layer to the facts at hand.”

His new novel, Onschuld (Innocence), revolves around the fictional character of Manuel Horst, a young war photographer who is kidnapped while on assignment in Syria. After he’s released, Horst learns that his estranged father, a renowned psychiatrist, has died.

On his way home, he meets a pregnant Syrian refugee, Nada, who accompanies him to Belgium.

Together they try to rebuild their lives, but he quickly starts to realise that nothing is what it seems.

Is Nada’s story true? Did his father come looking for him? And for the reader: Was his time in captivity as uneventful as he claims?

“I wanted to find out if it was already possible to write a novel dealing with the war in Syria,” says Theunissen, 37. “It’s a subject we read about and see on the news, but I think we can never fully grasp its severity. It had to be a novel that added something to the topic on a literary level because I approach it from a different, non-journalistic angle that slightly alters reality.”

© koen Broos

The result of that effort is a philosophical account of the fine line between right and wrong and guilt and innocence, one that has the intangible truth suspended somewhere in between.

A troubled father-son relationship is at the centre of Onschuld. In banishing his father from his life, Horst also seems to have destroyed a vital part of himself.

“The novel isn’t really about what happened to Horst in Syria, but I use those events as a catalyst to resolve his twisted relationship with his father,” Theunissen explains. “He is forced to delve into

his father’s past and get to know him from another angle, and, by doing this, he also comes to terms

inflict on local populations. “The novel portrays people who are traumatised on a daily basis, and

We read about it and see on the news, but I think we can never fully grasp its severity with his own inner turmoil.”

Theunissen (pictured) also wanted to depict the destruction that wars

one of these traumas in this case is the war,” he says. “It’s about how people use and abuse each other

to deal with their own past. Even when the horror is over, the scars are still tangible, both globally and on a personal level.”

Onschuld is a short novel but weighty because of its scope and themes. Theunissen is an ambitious author who likes to tackle major, universal themes in his work. “I don’t want to write simply about the relationships of the suburban middle class; I find that a bit limiting,” he says. “I think literature should be just that little bit extra. I write novels about the here and now, so certain topics and criticism are inevitable. With something like the war in Syria, the media creates an image of these events that becomes part of our daily lives. So it can’t be ignored.”

Onschuld is a real page-turner nonetheless, a novel that you’re unable to put down and leaves you groping for answers. “Because there are a lot of themes, some of which are quite heavy I admit, I wanted to pick up the pace and blow the reader away,” Theunissen says. “So, at the end of the ride, they’d wonder how it all swept over them so quickly.”

And wonder you will, because Onschuld is a whirlwind tale about love, truth and betrayal. It details one man’s winding journey for redemption, while at the same time holding up a mirror to our disconnected and tormented society.

With an ingeniously constructed novel that will make you ponder your place in the world, Theunissen illustrates that there are multiple sides to each story.

Onschuld is published by De Bezige Bij in Dutch

More fresh fiction veertig jaar liefde (forty years of love)

zoutkrabber expedities (salt-scratching Expeditions)

Jan van Loy • De Bezige Bij

Peter Holvoet-Hanssen • Prometheus

Jan Van Loy’s new novel consists of a collection of letters that the main character, Henri, wrote before, after and during the Second World War to the daughter he never met. Henri lived no ordinary life, though; he worked in a wide variety of jobs and lived his share of adventures over a period spanning nearly four decades. Faster than a high-speed train, Van Loy’s book offers an intoxicating mix of war story, spy thriller, family chronicle and plain old-fashioned fun. This is literary entertainment at its finest.

Peter Holvoet-Hanssen, naval enthusiast and former Antwerp city poet, has written a two-part tale, one that fits together like the two sides of a shell. Linking a real-life and an inner voyage, he tells the tales of Leen Pul, whose wartime story is based on the memories of her friend, and the recent, smouldering love affair between loner and sea lover Finbar and the socially conscious Louise, two opposites who drift towards each other.

The odd combination makes for an endearing and quirky novel as whimsical as the author himself.

Poppy, Eddie en manon Herman Brusselmans • Prometheus Poppy, Eddie en Manon isn’t your typical crass and laddish Brusselmans book. Instead, it’s a love story and a sequel to Poppy en Eddie, the 2014 novel that told the loving tale of his ex-wife, who was diagnosed with cancer, and their dog Eddie. Manon (a pseudonym for another Brusselmans ex) now joins the two in this oddly tender and slightly absurd but very hopeful semi-autobiographical novel.

Sfinx zonder gezicht (sphinx without a face) Bavo D’Hooge • Houtekiet Prolific Flemish author Bavo D’Hooge published no less than eight books in 2014. Some were for young adults but most were thrillers, the genre in which the writer excels. After winning the coveted Hercule Poirot prize in 2013, D’Hooge began writing an ambitious series devoted to the undercover cop William Cardon, with Sfinx zonder gezicht the first in that instalment. Cardon has to be someone else every week, and he can have no attachments – and no mercy. His initial assignment is to solve a murder at the Belgian embassy in Paris, but it soon becomes clear that he isn’t the only one with secrets.

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weeK in arts & cUltUre Cello added to Queen elisabeth Competition The Queen Elisabeth Competition, the prestigious annual event in Brussels for pianists, singers and violinists in alternate years, is adding cellists to its roster in 2017. The cello, the organisation said, is hugely popular internationally, but there is no major international competition for the instrument. “This is an historic step that reminds us of the friendship between Queen Elisabeth of Belgium and Pablo Casals,” said the organisation, referring to the late Spanish cellist. “On top of that, the rich cello repertory will prove a major addition to the other instruments.”

The first cello competition will be in May 2017, the year of the competition’s 80th anniversary.

In the meantime, this year’s competition is for violinists, with piano following in 2016.

Opera launches artistic Babysitter project Opera/Ballet Vlaanderen has collaborated with babysitting organisation Sloebersit to launch The Artistic Babysitter.

From now on, if you buy a ticket to one of the company’s opera or ballet performances online, you will automatically receive an email inviting you to take part in the programme that lets you drop off your child at the home of a pre-approved babysitter, who who will involve him or her in various creative activities. Every Artistic Babysitter has some kind of talent such as music, theatre or drawing.

Babysitters are recommended to parents based on what kind of activity is preferred and the age of the child. Parents pay the going rate of €4 per hour for the babysitter. Sloebersit currently lists 300 Artistic Babysitters across Flanders. \ www.sloEBErsit.BE

Peter Goossens makes new pistolet If you’ve never felt your wallet was thick enough to offer your custom to Peter Goossens’ three-Michelin-star Hof van Cleve restaurant in Kruishoutem, perhaps you’d fancy eating a sandwich developed by the chef for the Brussels deli and eatery Pistolet Original. Pistolet Original, located on Joseph Stevensstraat in the Zavel, is known for its pistolet sandwiches filled abundantly with fresh ingredients. Goossens’ specially designed pistolet contains smoked mackerel, Greek yoghurt, caviar and candied tomatoes, among other ingredients. The pistolet will be available at the deli from 2 February until the end of the summer for €9.

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Celebrating the blues

Exhibition traces melancholy in art, from the symbolist to the abstract christophe verbiest More articles by Christophe \ flanderstoday.eu

www.musEumdrguislain.BE

A new exhibition at the Dr Guislain Museum in Ghent serves as a showcase for how feelings of melancholy are translated into art, proving in the process that paintings inspired by sadness aren’t always sad

M

elancholy is associated with black bile, but it has also produced an endless amount of great artworks.

“All melancholics are geniuses,” Aristotle wrote some 24 centuries ago. Though that’s perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, history has proven him mostly right; melancholia has produced great art, be it books, film or music.

Melancholy has also been a great source of inspiration for the visual arts, as the exhibition Dark Chambers: On Melancholy and Depression proves.

Ghent’s Dr Guislain Museum had good reason to mount this show. Depression is mostly talked about in negative terms today, but “melancholia” has been a state of being with a positive connotation for centuries. It’s been around since the Greek physician Hippocrates characterised it as one of the four temperaments, which were each linked to a bodily fluid.

For the sad and moody temperament, that was black bile, which translates as melancholia in Greek.

Aristotle believed melancholics were both intelligent and sensitive. These days, “depressed people are relegated to doctors’ surgeries and hospitals,” note the Dark Chambers curators in the exhibition catalogue. They go on to quote Swedish professor Karin Johannisson, author of the study Melancholy Rooms, who said that “melancholy is the opposite of what is expected of the modern ego: strength and health, control and enthusiasm, living in the here and now”.

© Galerie De Zwarte Panter

Flemish artist jan Cox's 1944 self-portrait

The exhibition serves as a showcase for how melancholic feelings can be translated into art first and foremost. And those representations can be quite diverse, it turns out.

© Fondation Francès, senlis

Irène scene from Dutch photographer erwin Olaf’s 2007 Grief series

You might associate melancholia with gloomy images, but there are many other ways to visualise the feeling.

One of the most striking early examplesinthisexhibitionis“Melencolia I”, an etching of a brooding artist by German Albrecht Dürer in the early 16th century. Or take the portrait of St Jerome, which may or may not have been painted by Flemish artist Quentin Metsys (its origins remain unclear): the priest, his left index finger resting on a skull, seems to be in a state of acedia (now referred to as burnout).

It’s only in the second half of the 19th century, when the seeds of modern art start germinating, that artists try to capture the melancholic feeling in how they paint and draw. A striking illustration of that evolution is “Meditation”, a particularly gloomy drawing by the Brussels symbolist Xavier Mellery, whose oeuvre is steeped in melancholy.

The same goes for “Jeune femme de dos assise sur un tabouret” (Young Woman Sitting on a Stool), a painting by his Ostend colleague Léon Spilliaert.

Twenty-first century works comprise more or less half of Dark Chambers, and, instead of showing as many different contemporary artists as possible, the curators have opted to present multiple works by a smaller group of artists.

Among the most impressive modern artworks in the show are those by Tinus Vermeersch. His desolate landscapes, devoid of human life, painted and drawn in muted browns, greens and greys, seem to portend disaster, though it’s unclear what that calamity will

be. Vermeersch, who turns 40 next year, is indisputably one of Flanders’ most promising lesser-known artists, and his works here beg the question if it isn’t time for a solo exhibition.

Melancholy is the opposite of what is expected of the modern ego Vermeersch shares a certain colour sensibility with Marc Vanderleenen, though that’s where the parallel begins and ends. The latter has been dubbed the most pessimistic painter of his generation and a dark, yet witty work like “Man Falling Forward” shows why.

A similar combination of humour and melancholy can be found in Ruben Kindermans’ “Playing”, in which the video artist performs seemingly useless actions.

The Dark Chambers curators focused on a very specific part of the oeuvre of the rising Polish artist Wilhelm Sasnal: paintings inspired by rock bands like Sonic Youth and Einstürzende Neubauten. The melancholy in these works mainly stems from the colours, or the lack thereof.

Also included are three pieces from the complex, extended

until 31 may

series Drawings of Old Trees that landed Flemish artist Patrick Van Caeckenbergh an invitation to the Venice Biennale two years ago.

But the most impressive – and most melancholic – work in Dark Chambers is “Zeeberg” (Sea Mountain), a recent painting by Thierry De Cordier. It looks like a black mountain shrouded in clouds, but it’s actually a sea, painted as a looming force. It seems overpowering at first, but when you stare at it for a while, the image begins to shift and reveals its hidden vulnerability.

The works included in this exhibition are quite diverse – from the monumental, brightly coloured painting “Sinn bleibt Viech” by German artist Jonas Burgert, to the circumspect abstraction of Karel Dierickx, and from Marie-Françoise Plissar’s black-and-white nightscape of a rundown Brussels building to Gilbert Fastenaekens’ photos of post-industrial landscapes and sculptures by Juan Muñoz.

Still, they all seem to share one trait: They hint at a void that can’t be filled. Melancholia, after all, is a mourning for a loss or the pain that stems from longing for something that is unattainable. It can come as a chilly feeling when you’re alone in a dark room, but, as Dark Chambers shows, drinking in other people’s melancholia can have a soothing effect.

Or, in the words of Joni Mitchell: “There’s comfort in melancholy.”

Dr Guislain Museum

J Guislainstraat 43, Ghent

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january 28, 2015

A kinder, gentler Scandinavian

classical

Vikings! until 15 march

V

ikings! begins in a dark room with 10 giant screens on which images of daily life among the Norsemen create a video collage. Missing are scenes of hirsute savages in horned helmets wielding maces and rough-hewn shields. Instead, the viewer is shown craftsmen at the forge or carving wood, women grinding grain and spinning wool, children at play and a peaceful, agrarian society.

The exhibition, now on view at the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren, makes it clear from the outset that its aim is to dispel any cartoonish misconceptions you may have about who the Vikings

© statens Historiska Museum

a pendant based on Thor’s hammer from the Vikings! exhibition

Gallo-roman Museum, Tongeren www.galloromEinsmusEum.BE

were and to show instead a diverse, sophisticated people with a rich material culture.

Created in co-operation with The Swedish History Museum, Vikings! contains hundreds of original artefacts, from tools to jewellery to, yes, weapons. Interactive screens and extensive info panels place the objects in their social and historical context.

A particular emphasis is given to the role of women in Viking society. They are shown to have played an important role in the running of the farm and to have literally held the keys to the household.

Sections of the exhibition also deal with religious beliefs, agricultural

practices, what Vikings ate and wore, their skill at metalwork, their shipbuilding prowess and their extensive trade contacts. Recreations and replicas help to complete the picture.

Of course, the Vikings’ reputation as fierce and sometimes ruthless warriors was well deserved. While acknowledging their many incursions into

neighbouring lands from their homeland in Scandinavia, the exhibition suggests that the pillaging and plundering usually only occurred after peaceful attempts to expand their territory had failed.

Whetherornotthere is any evidence to support this view, it’s characteristic of an overall strategy to rehabilitate the Vikings’ bloodthirsty reputation. In this, Vikings! is certainly successful. \ Diana Goodwin

concert

visUal arts

Ennio morricone

Emilio lopez-menchero and Esther ferrer

3 february, 20.00

Paleis 12, Brussels www.Palais12.com

After several announcements and postponements due to health concerns, the legendary 86-yearold soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone is finally bound for Brussels to perform his best-loved themes with a 200-strong orchestra. The Italian maestro earned his reputation scoring spaghetti westerns in the 1960s, then went on to become the most famous soundtrack composer of all time (sorry, John Williams). Among Morricone’s more than 500 works are the instantly recognisable themes of Once Upon a Time in the West, The Untouchables, Days of Heaven and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. This one is not to be missed. \ Georgio Valentino

until 29 march Mol-born, Brussels-based artist Emilio Lopez-Menchero has been perplexing the public for years with his installation-performance art interventions, most notably a Cold War-style checkpoint erected in 2010 between the capital’s gentrified Dansaertstraat district and neighbouring (and largely immigrant) Molenbeek. This Centrale exhibition sees Lopez-Menchero begin an artistic dialogue with Spanish artist Esther Ferrer. The two share more than Iberian roots; both insist that contemporary art must be socially engaged. Together they tackle controversial issues of identity and freedom through the spectrum of artistic media, from painting to performance. \ GV

Centrale, Brussels www.cEntralE-art.BE

© “Trying to be Frida” / sophie Bibet & emilio lopez-Menchero

international Holocaust remembrance day

In the dead of January, the openair summer festival is both distant memory and vague prophecy. Ostend’s forward-thinking arts association Kunstvaarders proposes a weather-appropriate alternative. The inaugural edition of Chambres d’O puts music, theatre, dance, literature and the visual arts in cosy living rooms across the city and invites you to meet not just the artists but the townsfolk who host them. It’s a sprawling affair that features over a dozen performances, including several offerings for the kids. Local cultural centre Vrijstaat O serves as festival hub and exhibition space showcasing recycled lamp art by creative collective Onbetaalbaar. Let there be light. \ GV

www.kunstvaardErs.BE

On 27 January, 1945, the Red Army, on its march toward Berlin, liberated the survivors of a thenunknown Nazi extermination camp with a name now synonymous with genocide: Auschwitz.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the event, a day sanctified by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remem-

perforMance antwerp/Brussels Shappi Khorsandi: Standup by the Iranian-born British comedian known for her razor-sharp wit and mischievous delivery (in English). 30 January 20.00, Zuiderpershuis, Antwerp; 31 January 20.45, Bozar, Brussels \ www.livecomedy.be

Ghent Adela Campallo: Performance by the Spanish flamenco dancer who got her start at age nine with her family’s Seville ensemble La Familla Campallo, and since 2002 stars as soloist with Antonio Canales. 6 February 20.15, Handelsbeurs, Kouter 29

Bruges

chambres d’o

27 january

\ www.concertgebouw.be

visUal arts

event across Ostend

Bach Academie: The fifth edition of this multifaceted Bach festival is themed Ode to Death and features renditions of JS Bach’s work by Philippe Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale, funeral music by rising stars Vox Luminis and performances by top soloists, in addition to an exhibition, a lecture by Christoph Wolff (in English) and the Lamentarium, an annual walk filled with poetry and music. 28-31 January, Concertgebouw, 't Zand 34

\ www.handelsbeurs.be

festival 31 january & 1 february

Bruges

kazerne Dossin, Mechelen www.kazErnEdossin.Eu

brance Day. Mechelen’s Kazerne Dossin Holocaust and human rights museum observes the anniversary by offering free entry, extended hours and a special evening programme that includes a UN-sponsored testimonial reel and the opening of an exhibition of art by Holocaust refugee Osias Hofstätter. \ GV

Right, Before I Die: A project

by American artist Andrew George in collaboration with Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in California, resulting in a portrait series featuring 20 terminally ill patients and their views on death and dying.

Until 28 May, Sint-Jans Hospital, Mariastraat 38 \ www.museabrugge.be

festival across Flanders Poëzieweek: This year’s annual Poetry Week is themed love and features a wide range of poetryrelated activities around every corner, from schools, libraries and book shops to theatres, concert halls and cultural centres. 29 January to 4 February, across Flanders \ www.poezieweek.com

literatUre Brussels André Brink: The legendary South-African author (A Dry White Season) speaks with KU Leuven professor Ludo Teeuwen about his life and work (in English), followed by a book signing. 5 February 19.00, Bozar, Ravensteinstraat 23 \ www.bozar.be

© Marc Vandecasteele

© Courtesy kazerne Dossin

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january 28, 2015

Talking Dutch when you can’t see the trees for the signs derek Blyth More articles by Derek \ flanderstoday.eu

I

t’s not difficult to get lost in this region. Sometimes there are no signs at all. At other times there are far too many, according to a road traffic expert.

Onze Vlaamse wegen staan dicht bezaaid met borden die de weg aangeven naar toeristische trekpleisters, campings, restaurants, handelszaken, industriezones en andere locaties – Our Flemish roads are saturated with signs pointing the way to tourist attractions, campsites, restaurants, businesses, industrial zones and other places.

But this is not necessarily a good thing for road safety, according to Antwerp lecturer Joris Willems in De Morgen. Ongeveer de helft van alle borden kan weg – We could get rid of about half of the signs, he says, which would save taxpayers at least €16 million a year.

It could also save us from a few bumps – Op veel plaatsen schieten de borden hun doel daardoor helemaal voorbij en komt zelfs de verkeersveiligheid in het gedrang – In many places the signs serve no purpose whatsoever and sometimes even represent a danger.

Willems thinks that less is more.

CONNECT WITH US

© Hannes De Geest/Flickr

“Hoe meer verkeersborden er staan, hoe minder de waarde van een individueel bord” – “The more signs you have, the less useful each one is,” he explains. “Daardoor wordt belangrijke informatie minder belangrijk, en gaat uiteindelijk zelfs de minder belangrijk informatie volledig verloren” – “This means that important information becomes less important, and less important information is simply lost altogether.”

The number of signs is indeed staggering – Meer dan 1,6 miljoen verkeersborden en -lichten staan

er in Vlaanderen – There are more than 1.6 million traffic signs and traffic lights in Flanders, according to a survey by the verkeersbordendatabank – the traffic sign data bank.

The town of Vilvoorde heads the list in terms of sign density, with a staggering 1,500 squeezed into each square kilometre of municipal territory. Ghent, by contrast, manages to survive with just 500 signs per square kilometre.

Now the road traffic authority has realised that signs are not always effective. Het is soms moeilijk om door het bos de bomen te zien – It’s sometimes difficult to see the trees for the wood, they argue on their website.

So they are planning to chop down the signs that don’t serve any purpose. Op die manier kunnen de overgebleven borden hun signalisatiefunctie optimaal uitoefenen en creëren we een overzichtelijk en veilig wegbeeld – By so doing, the signs that are left will be able to perform their role of guiding people, and we will have a clearer and safer road environment.

You should then be able to see the trees, but not the accidents.

Tweet us your thoughts @FlandersToday

Poll

a. Good idea. The danger is on our doorstep, and a direct response is required. I feel safer

33% b. Good idea, but I don’t like to see it and hope they’re gone in a month, as promised

33% c. Bad idea. The terrorists have reached their goal already – forcing us to live in fear

33% embassies. One in three feel safer as a result; one in three hope the measure is temporary – although a permanent military presence on the streets is a feature in other European capitals, and not many eyebrows are raised.

In the meantime, police are stopping school patrols and clos-

\ next week's question:

ing police stations because of the threat. So perhaps you feel that maybe the military is the only protection we have.

The other one in three think this is a bad idea because it’s giving in to the terrorists’ primary aim: to instil fear in the population.

Antwerp artist Luc Tuymans has been found guilty of plagiarism for copying a press photo to create a painting, but he plans to appeal. What do you think?

Log in to the Flanders Today website at www.flanderstoday.eu and click on VOTE!

\ 16

Elimane Coulibaly @EliCoulibaly No Points From Ghent , congratulations to Ghent Football = Fair Play Football = not war Football = no hate @Standard_ RSCL @kvoostende

In response to: Wickmayer makes fourth round in Australian Open George Caraman @GCaraman @flanderstoday next opponent @simona_halep

Andrew Stroehlein @astroehlein Why doesn't anyone just open a café or deli or restaurant in #Brussels? Why is everything a “new concept”?

Manuel De La Mare @ManuelDeLaMare Flying to brussel, and tonight @versuz hasselt, so happy to be back!

In response to: Exhibition celebrates giants of Belgian sport Joe Mares Two real champions

Hozier Brussels, you are a pretty thing.

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the last word

what do you think of soldiers being deployed to the streets of antwerp and Brussels amid fears of terrorist attacks?

An unprecedented result this week: equal thirds for each of the three options. Two of the responses are somewhat related, however, so it’s hard to say that our readers are evenly divided.

Most of you think it’s a good idea for soldiers to be deployed in sensitive areas such as synagogues or

voices of flanders today

End of an era

“It’s unbelievable how things have changed in 30 years. Brussels is now a bustling, cultural city. Back then things were different. We were the place to be, because there was nothing else.”

Culture programmer Niklaas Van den Abeele recalls the early days of the VUB’s KultuurKaffee, which held its final party at the weekend

in balance

“When I started arguing cases 42 years ago, there were only men walking around in the courthouse. Now the magistrature has become a largely female profession.”

Veteran lawyer Jef Vermassen on the statistic released this week that shows that women are in the majority in the legal profession

new neighbours

“They’re friendly people. A little remote, but friendly. Every day they brought us coffee and biscuits. They were obviously pleased we were here.”

A Belgian paratrooper stationed outside a Jewish school in Antwerp

rhyme sublime

“It’s a very unfashionable genre. It’s thoughtful and slow; it responds in no way to the contemporary requirements of entertainment. There’s little or no place in our society for such a vulnerable art.”

Peter Verhelst, one of the nominees for this year’s Herman De Coninck prize for poetry

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