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port in a Storm

Knokke’s art is out in the open at the 24th edition of Sculpture Link

Get your caffeine hit at an unorthodox new Antwerp coffee bar

Leuven students prove there’s life in the old Doel yet

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This is not a commemoration

Knokke pays tribute to magritte, 50 years after surrealist’s death ian mundell follow Ian on Twitter \ @IanMundell

Knokke is leading the months-long memorial events with a virtual reality Magritte Experience – inside a giant bowler hat – an exhibition on his links to the sea, and the chance to have a peek at the casino’s massive Magritte mural.

nokke isn’t the first place you associate with the name of Belgian surrealist René Magritte, yet the Flemish seaside resort is out in front when it comes to commemorating the 50th anniversary of the painter’s death. Its Magritte Experience, on the beach, will run until September. This will be followed in October by an exhibition on Magritte and the sea. Knokke’s reason for adopting Magritte lies in the town’s

casino. In 1952 and ’53, Magritte oversaw the production of a massive mural called “The Enchanted Realm”, which reprises many of his most famous themes. Wrapping around the walls of the casino’s circular gaming room, it is arguably the world’s biggest Magritte. “‘The Enchanted Realm’ is an important work in René Magritte’s oeuvre, and we are very proud that it can be seen in Knokke-Heist,” says Leopold Lippens, the town’s mayor. “So it should come as no surprise that we want to commemorate Magritte here, 50 years after his death.” The Magritte Experience is directly opposite the casino, on a large patch of beach surrounded by a white picket fence. Inside, a boardwalk leads visitors past panels explaining aspects of Magritte’s life and the most famous of his

images, some of which are also brought to life. There is a large pipe, of course, and large green apples scattered here and there. And there is a vast bowler hat, resting on the sand as if dropped from a great height. The centrepiece of the Experience is inside the hat: a virtual reality “ride” through a landscape made up of Magritte’s most celebrated motifs. Once wearing the headset you can look around Magritte’s world, but you stay sitting throughout the ride; this is not the kind of virtual reality where you get to explore or interact with the digital world. Magritte’s art is full of flying and floating objects, which lends itself to this kind of experience. It’s as if you become one of his bowler hatted men, hovering in mid-air. There are moments of vertigo as you float over a cliff edge continued on page 5

\ CURRenT AFFAIRs

Concern over security screening of Tomorrowland customers

Privacy commission says it wasn’t consulted as 38 festival-goers barred alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

he Belgian Privacy Commission, which governs data protection, has criticised a decision by the federal police to screen all 230,000 people with tickets for the Tomorrowland dance music festival in Boom, Antwerp province. So far, 38 festival-goers have been banned from the event, which kicks off on 20 July. The Commission was not involved in the decision to carry out screening, a police spokesperson said. “We only require the approval of the mayors of Boom and Rumst, and we had that,” said Peter De Waele.

The police used the national database maintained by the federal police, which lists crim-

inal records as well as other intelligence, such as stadium bans. “Each case signalled by the database was also looked at individually, and a limited selection was made,” De Waele said. The search also covered festival staff and volunteers. One of the Privacy Commission’s concerns is that the screening covered foreign nationals who are not covered by the national database – about half of all Tomorrowland ticket-holders. According to a spokesperson for the festival, more limited screening has taken place over

the last six years, carried out by local police in the Rupel zone. In those cases, too, a number of ticket-holders were refused entry. A spokesperson for the Privacy Commission said the screening was “in no way approved” in advance. It now intends to carry out an investigation with the P Committee, which scrutinises police matters. Ticket-holders refused access will be reimbursed for the price of their ticket, but not for the cost of travel or accommodation booked in advance. The festival is held in two parts: 20-23 July and 27-30 July.

Investigation into three deaths from drugs National Day theme is ‘proud to serve’ The prosecutor’s office in East Flanders has begun an investigation into three deaths in recent months, all linked to the use of new forms of drugs bought online. Two cases concerned opioids and a third a hallucinogen related to PCP. The term opioid refers to the synthetic form of opiates, or drugs derived from opium, such as morphine and heroin. Opioids are used recreationally as well as medically for pain relief. The latest appearance concerns the drug U-47700, which goes by the names acrylfentanyl and ocfentanil. Two deaths were reported in East Flanders in early May; one man had sniffed acrylfentanyl, while

another had injected a mixture of ocfentanil, caffeine and paracetamol. Last month a Ghent man was found dead after apparently sniffing the drug 3-MeOPCP, a hallucinogen related to the drug PCP, also known as angel dust. The Belgian Early Warning System on Drugs had previously issued a warning about online sellers of new forms of psychoactive drugs, known to be extremely potent and dangerous. A spokesperson for the Ghent prosecutor’s office confirmed an investigation was under way, but declined to give further information “in the interest of the ongoing investigation”. \ AH

The theme of this year’s National Day on 21 July will be Proud to Serve, the federal government has announced. “The National Day is an opportunity to pay tribute to the men and women who give daily in civilian and military service for Belgium and its people,” a spokesperson said. The day will begin at 10.00 in Brussels with the traditional Te Deum service in the Saint Michael and Gudula Cathedral, attended by the King and Queen. At the same time, the Defence department will host its annual Feest in de Warande, a street fair stretching from the Justice Palace to Warandepark featuring a variety of entertainment. The Zavel will be home to live music all

day and the military will present information on jobs. The traditional military parade on Paleizenplein begins at 16.00, featuring 1,660 personnel, including 158 foreign troops – a detachment from Shape in Mons marking the 50th anniversary of the organisation. The parade includes 43 vehicles, 35 aircraft and a squadron of helicopters. Police, customs, civil protection and disaster relief team B-Fast will take part in a civilian parade, with public health and Red Cross personnel. The official celebrations end at 23.00 with fireworks, also on Paleizenplein. \ AH

Red Devils seek new home as King Baudouin Stadium closes Preparations are about to begin on construction of the Neo shopping and business complex at Heizel in Brussels. Groundwork will also begin on the new tram line 9, which passes close to the King Baudouin Stadium on the site. Brussels-City council has decided not to approve the use of the stadium for a World Cup qualifying match between the national football team and Cyprus in October. The Royal Belgian Football Union has been advised to look for another venue. The decision means the national team is

now homeless: the Baudouin Stadium, once closed, is not expected to re-open and is in line for demolition. In the meantime, a planned new national stadium at Heizel is mired in legal challenges and may not meet Fifa’s deadline of 2020 to be ready for the European Championships. In other football news, Romelu Lukaku has broken the transfer record for a Belgian footballer, after Manchester United agreed to pay Everton £75 million (€84.75 million) for the player. Lukaku (pictured) has signed a five-year contract with United. If add-ons

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applications for a premium from the Flemish government for buying a zero-emissions motor vehicle in the first six months of the year, compared to 500 in the same period last year

and options are included, the 24-year-old could be the most expensive player in the

world. Originally from Antwerp, the striker has been a sensation at Everton, where he scored 68 Premier League goals in five years, scoring 25 times last season. He is a key part of the Belgian national team, the Red Devils – which also happens to be United’s nickname. Lukaku was first spotted as a boy at Antwerp side Rupel Boom and played in the KFC Wintam and Lierse youth sides before joining Anderlecht, where he played his first senior game at just 16. \ AH/Leo Cendrowicz

reduction in the number of criminal incidents recorded by Brussels public transport operator MIVB in 2016, compared to the year before. However, complaints of “undesired intimacy” were up 38%

candidates for the entrance exam to study medicine or dentistry at a Flemish university passed – a pass rate of 15%, higher than the 12% who passed last year. A second exam takes place in August

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of Belgians who get a traffic fine when driving abroad don’t pay it, according to motoring organisation VAB. The fines mostly concern parking and speeding offences

passengers at Antwerp Airport in the first half of the year, 14.5% less than the same period in 2016. A spokesperson said that figures last year were up due to the terrorist attacks at Brussels Airport

july 19, 2017

WeeK in brief Seven members of Antwerp police’s Special Intervention Team who were convicted this year of involuntary manslaughter for the death in custody of Jonathan Jacob will receive no internal disciplinary sanction, the office of mayor Bart De Wever has confirmed. Disciplinary measures can only be taken in cases of deliberate acts. A spokesperson for De Wever said the decision did not imply a judgement of the appeal court’s ruling. A scheme in which employees of B&A Technics in Haaltert in East Flanders could win one of two holiday tickets in a raffle has been declared illegal by labour law specialists. The prize draw excludes anyone who has been sick in the previous two months and is therefore discriminatory, according to unions and labour law experts from the University of Leuven, De Standaard reports. Valérie Geeuricks has been nominated as mayor of the Flemish Brabant municipality of Linkebeek by Flemish minister Liesbeth Homans. Two previous nominees put forward by the French-speaking majority on the council were refused because of breaches of the language laws. Geeuricks is a French-speaking member of the council previously responsible for culture, information and the middle class, elected for FDF but now sitting as an independent. She is the municipality’s first female mayor. Jan Peumans, speaker of the Flemish parliament, has announced he will be stepping down after the regional elections in 2019. He will stand for N-VA to lend his considerable electoral draw to the party but will not take up his seat if elected, for personal reasons. “I have had a fantastic wife for 45 years,” he told the Belang van Limburg. “I was always away from home. I saw far too little of my children and grand-

face of flanderS children. That’s why I’m closing this chapter.” Peumans will be 68 when the elections take place. Belgium’s ban on wearing a partialor full-face covering like the burqa in public is not in breach of the European convention on human rights, the European Court in Strasbourg has said. The court was ruling in two cases, one which had already been upheld by the Constitutional Court in 2011 and a second upheld by the Council of State in the same year. The case in Strasbourg was based on the articles of the convention covering privacy, religious freedom, freedom of expression and discrimination. The federal equal opportunities agency, Unia, has said a ban imposed by some municipalities on the burkini – full-body swimwear designed to preserve the modesty of Muslim women – has no basis in law. Unlike the burqa, the burkini does not hide the face of the wearer, which is the essential aspect of the burqa ban. The burkini ban is also not justified on the grounds of hygiene or safety, the organisation said. FormerfederalpolicechiefFernand Koekelberg will not go on trial for fraud in relation to a trip he took with a colleague to Qatar, having used official funds to buy Delvaux luggage for the trip, where Koekelberg was to lobby for a post with Interpol. The committal hearing ruled that there had been administrative errors but that there was no question of fraudulent intent. Gary Meskil, the singer with American metal band Pro-Pain who was the victim of a savage attack in the centre of Brussels this month, has thanked the police and the staff of the Sint-Pieters hospital. “I want to make clear that this incident has not changed my opinion of Brus-

sels and her people,” he said. “This could have happened anywhere. I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong moment.” Meskil suffered fractures to his face and jaw and was in a critical condition for a time. A man has been arrested in connection with the attack and charged with attempted murder. The municipalities of Deinze and Nevele are the latest in a list of towns wishing to merge, in their case to become the fifth-largest municipality in East Flanders with 43,000 inhabitants. The Flemish government offers merged municipalities €500 in debt write-off for each inhabitant, up to a maximum of €20 million. Police, forest rangers and other officials will take part in a weeklong clampdown on fly-tipping and littering in the third week of September, as the culmination of a summer campaign to encourage motorists using motorway car parks to use rubbish bins properly. Organisers said the clampdown would involve fines for offenders, but the emphasis was on raising awareness of the problem of rubbish, 3,000 tonnes of which has to be collected from along Flemish roads every year. Unless budgets are increased, the Flemish TV industry will not be able to take advantage of the opportunities available, according to Pierre Drouot, director-general of the Flemish Audiovisual Fund. Speaking to the Flemish parliament, Drouot compared Flanders with Denmark, which has made a number of highly successful series in recent years like Borgen and The Killing. Flanders is heading in the same direction but more money is required, he said. According to a recent study commissioned by media minister Sven Gatz, the TV fiction industry needs a minimum of €9.5 million a year, and ideally €13.6 million.

offSide summertime blues Are the school summer holidays too long? That’s the question to which parents are already answering “yes” – a position backed up by academic research. According to Martin Valcke, lecturer in education at Ghent University, “a long summer vacation has a negative effect on children’s learning performance. The longer the vacation lasts, the more you forget. For weaker pupils especially, that’s not a good thing.” The fact that long summer holidays lead to forgetfulness can be seen by asking a grown-up whether their own summers were too long. In 99% of cases, the adult will become wistful, as they recall the sunlit uplands of their child-

hood running barefoot through the fields and plucking wild strawberries. In reality, most of us experienced intermittent showers, inter-

luckas vander taelen This year’s Golden Spurs award for contribution to social debate has gone to Luckas Vander Taelen, the broadcaster, former politician, columnist and funkrock singer. He received the award during the recent 11 July celebrations, at a ceremony in the city hall in Bruges. Vander Taelen was born in Aalst in 1958, but it is with Brussels that he is now most closely associated. After studying history at the Free University (VUB) he went to work as a reporter and documentary maker on both sides of the language divide – for the French-speaking RTBF on its celebrated Strip Tease magazine programme, and for VTM, where he made a five-part series on concentration camps called De Laatste Getuigen (The Last Witnesses). Then politics beckoned, and he sat in the European Parliament from 1999 to 2002 for Agalev, which later changed its name to Groen. He was then directorgeneral of the Flemish Audiovisual Fund, then a municipal councillor in Vorst in Brussels. He moved from there to the Flemish parliament from 2009 to 2014 before leaving politics altogether. He now teaches at the Brussels film school Rits and the Erasmus university college. Formal politics, that is. Because anyone with a strong social conscience and a gift for words is

bound to find an outlet for their opinions, and those are something Vander Taelen has plenty of. A blog written for the VRT in 2015-2016 covered a range of subjects from new Belgians to smartphone dependency to the diminishing power of the clergy to life on Mars. In his column in De Standaard he covered topics such as journalistic ethics, cycling, refugees in Calais and the bloodthirst of cats. In between all that, he has also resurrected his 1980s band, Lavvi Ebbel, with more or less the same members as those responsible for such hits as “Victoria” and “Give Me a Gun”. The Golden Spurs award is given out by the Flanders-Europe Movement, whose chair, An De Moor, stressed that Vander Taelen was being recognised for his social contribution rather than his cultural record. “Vander Taelen is indeed in many ways a polymath with an undeniable cultural background, but for our organisation he deserves the Golden Spurs for his idiosyncratic, often combative but always well-founded opinions developed over the years about our difficult multicultural society. It is to his credit that he has no fear of tilting at the sacred windmills of both left and right wings, whenever he feels the need.” \ Alan Hope

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

spersed with sunburn and hayfever, followed by catatonic boredom. Professor Valcke also points out the importance of another group. “Children from a migrant background who go back to their home country are not encouraged to speak Dutch. When they come back, they often suffer from an interruption in language development.” Despite Valcke’s advice, the proposal to shorten the summer holiday was swept from the table some time ago in the face of objections from unions. Education minister Hilde Crevits is not planning to address the topic during this legislature. \ AH

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\ POLITICs

5th column The mandate kings

Graaien – or money grabbing – is the new buzzword in Flemish politics. The term was introduced by Peter Mertens, president of the far-left PVDA. He used it to describe taxdodging millionaires, as well as politicians who enrich themselves. Any politician accused of graaien is fair game these days. For a while, it was seen as something mostly done by French-speaking politicians, as a number of scandals about intercommunals such as Publifin broke. However, the same atmosphere – some politicians would call it a witch hunt – has taken hold in Flanders. Tom Balthazar was one of the first to be accused of graaien. Thesocialistcitycouncillorwas set to succeed Daniel Termont (SP.A) as Ghent mayor. When it was revealed that he held a well-paid seat on the board of a private company comparable to Publifin, he resigned as councillor and decided not to stand at the elections. Since Balthazar’s (and later Brussels mayor Yvan Mayeur’s) resignation, looking into politicians’ mandates and incomes has become something of a national sport. Some less wellknown politicians turned out to be true mandate kings: Antwerp city councillor Koen Kennis (N-VA) and East Flanders deputy Geert Versnick (Open VLD) each held dozens of paid seats with numerous organisations, both public and private. Kennis received support from N-VA president Bart De Wever, who praised his expertise and said the councillor could easily make more money in the private sector. Versnick, who has a long career as a “fixer” in the liberal party, was left out in the cold. He resigned as city councillor in Ghent and announced he would no longer stand for office in the 2018 local elections. Last week he received a final blow, as it was revealed that he had recovered expenses for an expensive hotel in Bangkok. The stays were stopovers during his travels in the Far East. There are no reports of irregularities, but Versnick understood full well that he could not counter popular perception. With his reputation tarnished, Versnick announced his resignation as a deputy in September. Few pity Versnick, who seems like a textbook case of graaien. He is, however, mostly a politician from an older generation, a throwback to the days when combining mandates was seen as normal, and even useful for personal and political advancement. Times, it seems, are changing. \ Anja Otte

Bourgeois calls for state reforms in Community Day speech minister-president demands more autonomy in policy-making and taxation alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

lemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois has called for a seventh round of state reforms and a new Flemish constitution in his traditional speech on the eve of 11 July, Flemish Community Day. “The series of state reforms we have seen has given us a broad autonomy in policy,” he said. “Broad, but not sufficient.” He identified three areas where the regions need more power: the labour market, health care and fiscal autonomy. “It seems to me only logical that the regions should be given not only the responsibilities but also the budget of the state employment service,” he said. On fiscal autonomy, Bourgeois (pictured) referred to a 1999 resolution that called for the transfer of personal income tax receipts to the regions. “The 20th anniversary [of the resolution] in 2019 would be an outstanding opportunity to finally realise the terms of the resolution

and finally give Flanders and Wallonia substantial fiscal autonomy.” Bourgeois also called for a new Flemish constitution, 50 years after the 1830 constitution was translated into Dutch. “In almost all federal states, regions have their own constitutions. Flanders does not even have the power to write a constitution.” In his own 11 July speech in Brussels’ city hall,

Flemish parliament speaker Jan Peumans picked up on Bourgeois’ theme: an independent foreign policy for Flanders, with its own diplomatic authority to take part in a changing Europe. The Flemish diplomatic corps and department of foreign affairs, he said, have to be backed by an independent foreign policy and its own negotiators. Too much is at stake in the talks on Brexit, for example, for the work to be left to federal representatives. “Great Britain is a much too important partner for Flanders,” he said. Across the region, meanwhile, celebrations took place, including the fifth edition of Brussel Danst, which attracted 10,000 visitors to the capital for concerts on Grote Markt, the annual dance battle on Muntplein and sing-alongs at the Beurs. Antwerp’s Vlaanderen Feest on Grote Markt attracted some 5,500 people to a bill that included K3, Ingeborg and Yevgueni.

Rental deposits to be increased from two months to three

Flanders-Netherlands strategy to strengthen common ties The government of Flanders has approved a new strategy for relations with the Netherlands, based on shared logistical, economic and cultural goals. Among the opportunities presented are a port area stretching from Ostend to Amsterdam that would take in the continent’s two largest ports – Antwerp and Rotterdam (pictured). At the same time, the agreement stresses the Flemish-Dutch relationship as a meeting point of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic cultures.

One of the strategy paper’s objectives is to turn the Low Countries into a common economic area, benefiting from economies of scale and co-operation to improve international competitiveness. Another aim is to create a common cultural area built around the shared language. “The development of a common cultural space strengthens the position of the Dutch language, enriches the interaction of our cultures and gives us a larger and more resilient public space,” the paper says. \ AH

The maximum rental guarantee that can be demanded by landlords is to be increased from two months’ rent to three, following a decree passed by the housing minister, Liesbeth Homans. Anyone renting an apartment at €500 a month, for example, will now have to come up with €2,000 – three months’ deposit plus the first month’s rent – before they can move in. According to Homans, the higher deposit gives owners better security against rent default or damage to property, and is an incentive to consider tenants who may have less of a credit rating. “The rental decree creates a balanced framework where renting remains interesting for the landlord, while offering affordable, high-quality and stable rentals for the tenant,” Homans said. It also addresses some problems uncovered by the previous federal regulations, such as sub-letting and student accommodation, she said. “That is totally impossible for

people on low incomes,” a spokesperson for the Netwerk tegen Armoede (Network Against Poverty) said. “A higher deposit is an old formula that has been shown not to work. Tenants will now start off renting a home with more financial problems, which only increases the risk of problems paying. A higher deposit doesn’t solve any problems at all.” Homans, meanwhile, has proposed an anonymous, interest-free loan system that would advance the deposit to the new tenant under certain conditions. Homans’ coalition partners CD&V supported the deposit increase on condition the loan system be up and running.

Bourgeois pledges support for Kurdish referendum result The government of Flanders will support the people of Iraqi Kurdistan if they choose independence in a referendum to be held in September, minister-president Geert Bourgeois has said. Bourgeois received a delegation from the autonomous region last week in Brussels, including president Masoud Barzani and members of the High Referendum Council. “I am in favour of the right of the self-determination of all the people in the world,” Bourgeois said. “It is the will of the [Kurdish] government to organise this referendum. I think we should respect it. If the majority

Flemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois meets Masoud Barzani, president of Iraqi kurdistan

supports independence, I think we should accept it,” he said. Flanders has built strong ties with Iraqi Kurdistan following a visit by Bourgeois and a Flemish delegation to the region in April last year. That visit took in the capital, Erbil, as well as a refugee camp for those fleeing Iraq and Syria. Bourgeois then received a Kurdish delegation last August, and in December pledged funding to bring wounded Peshmerga soldiers – the autonomous region’s military force – who are fighting IS to Flanders for treatment.

President Barzani described the meeting last week as “very good”. “We conveyed the message of the people of Kurdistan to our friends here in Belgium,” he said. “There was a good understanding. Their attitude was very friendly. We are grateful for their support.” Earlier, the Kurdish delegation met with federal home affairs minister Jan Jambon, who echoed Bourgeois’ sentiments. “Every people in every nation has the right to organise its future, and I think this is a step forward for the future of the Kurds,” he said. \ AH

\ COVeR sTORY

july 19, 2017

This is not a commemoration remembering magritte with new exhibitions, books and a special edition beer

magrittEKnoKKE.BE

continued from page 1

or up and out of a hollow tree. When you look back, these turn out to be floating over a mountain range. The ride also picks up on Magritte’s games with scale, floating you past the massive figure of a nude woman who is partly changing into sky – although clouds preserve more of her modesty than in the original painting. His optical illusions are also here, in particular a very effective plunge into a mirror which becomes a kind of roller coaster. There is an intentional resonance here between the landscapes in Magritte’s work and the world outside the bowler hat. “Magritte’s iconography is everywhere on the beach at Knokke-Heist,” says Jeroen Overstijns, chief executive of WPG Uitgevers, the publishing company behind the Experience. “With your feet in the sand, you are standing in a painting.” While the ride is less than 10 minutes long, it works rather well, particularly if you already know your way around Magritte’s work. That would seem to be a safe bet, given how ubiquitous his imagery is, but it will be fascinating to see what children make of this as an introduction to his particular brand of surrealism. Once the ride is over, visitors can have a drink at the Magritte bar, take the kids to the play area or check out the shop. Merchandise plays an important role in the Experience, from the usual cloth bags and notebooks to designer clothes incorporating Magritte’s motifs. Among the books, there is a Magritte-themed thriller by Flemish crime writer Toni Coppers, commissioned for the commemoration. The €15 ticket to visit the Magritte Experience also allows you into the casino to see the mural, a privilege usually reserved for people attending events there. Rather than leaving you to explore the room on your own, a 20-minute commentary in Dutch, English or French guides you around as each of the eight large panels is lit up in turn. The motifs are described, related to Magritte’s other work and personal obsessions, and the ingenuity of the work explained. Rather than just a reprise of Magritte’s greatest hits, the mural has a sense of continuity that weaves together sea and sky, but which also echoes the room, for instance by including a lush red curtain. It’s worth ignoring the commentary for a moment and trying to imagine sitting down to play cards or roulette here in the mid-1950s, when these images of cloudtinged nudes, bird-mountains and burning musical instruments

Magritte’s art is full of flying objects, and with the virtual reality experience it’s as if you become one of his bowler-hatted men, hovering in mid-air

A boardwalk in knokke leads visitors past panels explaining the most famous of Magritte’s images, some of which are brought to life

were lit by a monumental chandelier made of Murano crystal. “The naked breasts in the painting caused an enormous scandal at the time,” Lippens says. While not quite old enough to speak from experience, he did know Magritte, meeting him through the Nellens family, who built and owned the casino. This connection gives him a good stock of stories about the creation of the mural. For instance, it seems that Gustave Nellens, who commissioned the work, was so vexed by the slow progress in completing it that anyone visiting Magritte in the room was interrogated to check that they were a painter, and so presumably coming to help out. Since this included fellow artists such

as Paul Delvaux, the answer “yes” was not always a guarantee that Magritte would be hard at work. And although Magritte personally oversaw the team painting

night at the coast,” Lippens says. “He always went back to Brussels, to sleep at home.” For present-day trippers, KnokkeHeist has also devised a Magritte-

The naked breasts in the painting caused an enormous scandal at the time the mural, he never spent a single night in Knokke. “He took the train three to four times each week, to see how the work was progressing, but he didn’t like to spend the

themed treasure hunt around the town. An app takes you around 15 locations, where you have to carry out an assignment or do some detective work. Designed

for families, the route should take about an hour to complete. And from October to January there will be an exhibition exploring Magritte’s art linked to the sea, at the town’s Scharpoord Cultural Centre. Commemorations of Magritte’s death also take place in Brussels, where the inside of the Atomium will be turned into another Magritte experience. Here the use of Magritte’s imagery will be more tangible, combining projections and prints with objects lifted from the paintings. “Like characters in a play, visitors will walk through the decor and soak up the ambiance in a playful way,” explains Henri Simons, director of the Atomium. The installation will last for a year, beginning on 21 September. Meanwhile, the Théatre des Galeries in central Brussels has finally received the ceiling Magritte designed for it in 1951. A preliminary gouache, now in the Magritte Museum, proposed a sky filled with sleigh bells, but this idea was rejected as too obscure. So he suggested his trademark clouds, an idea that was more acceptable but still not followed through. Sixty-five years on, this safe option has finally made it on to the ceiling above the main auditorium. In addition to Coppers’ thriller, various books are being published to mark the 50 years since Magritte’s death. These include scholarly volumes by Flemish arts critic Eric Rinckhout and German museum director Siegfried Göhr, and a book on Magritte for children. The Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels will also be joining the commemorations, not just this year but running on to the 10th anniversary celebrations of the Magritte Museum in 2019. The first stage will be an exhibition that opens in October, looking at Magritte’s influence on contemporary art. It will begin with the effect he had on fellow Belgian Marcel Broodthaers, and go on to examine the influence of Magritte’s “word paintings” from 1927-29 on the emergence of Conceptualism. Then it will look at the way artists from the 1980s onwards have been inspired by his bright, naive “vache” period. This will take in artists such as George Condo, Gavin Turk, Sean Landers and David Altmedj. We are also promised a Magritte beer, although not the Pig Beer the artist once suggested, hopefully in jest. The limited-edition brew will be produced by Brussels brewery Brasserie de la Senne and will only be available at the museum’s cafe and shops, from September.

\ BUsIness

WeeK in buSineSS Fishery Aqua4C The sustainable fish farm in Kruishoutem, East Flanders, has signed a deal to supply its fish to supermarket chain Carrefour. The move will bump the start-up company’s sales from one to 1.5 tonnes fish per week.

Digital showpad

The Ghent company has secured a partnership with Microsoft under which the US tech giant will recommend and make Showpad’s digital sales platform available to customers who buy a Microsoft licence.

Air Belgocontrol

In spite of the 22 March terrorist attacks, the national air traffic control agency booked a net profit of €26.4 million last year, a 7% increase from the previous year.

Air Brussels Airport

Cargo traffic at Brussels Airport decreased 3.1% during the month of June. The cargo dip follows the introduction of more stringent noise limits in April. But there was also good news: With 2.2 million travellers, passenger traffic at the airport increased 1.1%, making last month the airport’s busiest June ever.

Interim Vivaldis

The interim agency has acquired a 70% stake in its German competitor Myra. The acquisition is Vivaldis’ first ever.

Retail Van de Velde

The lingerie manufacturer behind the Marie Jo and Prima Donna brands, based in Schellebelle, East Flanders, booked a €117 million turnover in the first six months of 2017 – a 1.2% increase from the previous year. The uptick is a bright spot for the company’s shareholders after Van de Velde’s stock market value plunged 27% this year.

Bakery Aernoudt

The Vectis Private Equity investment fund has taken a stake in the Ghentbased company, which has 20 bakeries in the Ghent area. The investment fund is expected to help the company grow further and expand its geographic reach.

More tourists on their way

more foreign tourists have plans to visit flanders, new survey says alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

he awareness of Flanders as a holiday destination among foreign tourists is on the increase, according to a survey by VisitFlanders. Three years ago, 68% of those surveyed knew something about what Flanders has to offer, while the latest survey shows that the figure has gone up to 72%. The survey was carried out among 13,000 tourists from 13 countries, at the request of tourism minister Ben Weyts. According to Tine Vandermeersch of VisitFlanders, the centenary of the First World War and an increased budget to promote the region overseas have contributed to the increase. “It’s very satisfying to see that tourists not only know about Flanders, they also want to come

here,” she said. “One in three is planning a trip in the next three years.” Among the cities, Brussels stands out with 90% name recognition, followed by Bruges (76%) and

Antwerp (74%). Ypres, the city most strongly associated with the First World War, scores 30%. Reactions to the terrorist attacks in March 2016 were varied. Asked if they would hesitate coming to the region because of such events, 56% of Japanese people said yes, while the number was 36% among Americans. For closer neighbours, the figures were much lower: only 9% of Dutch people would hesitate, and 12% of French people. In the immediate future, the government and VisitFlanders intend to concentrate on gastronomy and the Flemish Masters. Both food and culture found favour among travelling foreigners. “We have everything they’re looking for,” Weyts said. “We have to put the best of Flanders forward on the world stage.”

Workers to get grants and leave for mid-career education

ArcelorMittal Ghent plant among worst polluters in Europe

The government of Flanders has approved a programme that allows work leave, payment cheques and subsidies to employees who opt for mid-career education and training, labour minister Philippe Muyters has announced. The proposals have been approved in co-operation with unions and employers. The support has three parts: the availability of time off work to take courses, cheques that can be exchanged for classes and subsidies for certain kinds of courses. Priority will be given to classes that target qualifications in short supply in the region and that take account

The ArcelorMittal steel plant in Ghent is one of the worst polluters in Europe, according to a report by the European Environment Agency. The factory’s production of heavy metals and fine particulates is singled out for particular criticism. The company said it applied best practice to keep emissions to a minimum. The report refers to conditions in 2015 and covers 35,000 industrial facilities and 3,400 energy production plants, looking at eight key pollutants of air and water. In many areas, the report records improvements on previous years, but the state of coal-fired power stations is reported to be particularly bad. The steel sector is also one of the most serious polluters. Across the continent, 59 factories are named as top polluters, among them ArcelorMittal Ghent, which was responsible in 2015 for 5.8% of all heavy metals emissions in

of the evolution of technology. According to Muyters, the changes will have no financial repercussions, as the existing €70 million budget for training remains. “How that sum will be split among the three main pillars of the policy still needs to be determined,” he said. \ AH

Businesses look to increase diversity among employees More than 1,000 small businesses have expressed an interest in increasing diversity in the workforce, and 200 have taken steps to begin to make changes since the launch of two programmes in October. Jobstap by Unizo and Welt by the Flemish chamber of commerce Voka are supported by the Flemish government and aim to help companies hire staff regardless of qualifications, age, gender, ethnicity and disabilities. “This government is investing heavily in initiatives that give everyone the chance to be brought into the jobs market,” Philippe Muyters, the Flemish labour minister, said. “For our Focus on Talent programme we found €14 million, to be divided among programmes supported by unions and by employers’ organisations Unizo and Voka.” The money, he stressed, is given out in return for concrete results in the field. “The more people we put to work, regardless of their background, the better it is for our economy and our well-being,” he said, adding that the promising results from the two diversity programmes show the value of the

investment. “The resources made available by the Flemish government for diversity are extremely important,” said Karel Van Eetvelt, director-general of Unizo. “Not because our business people would not otherwise be open to diversity on the workfloor – that openness grows with every day that another vacancy remains unfilled. But because they don’t know where and how to begin.” Unizo’s programme involves oneto-one sessions with employers to guide them. Between January and May this year the organisation carried out more than 1,200 sessions. At Voka, the Welt programme has seen 72 businesses complete a diversity training course, with 234 more signed up. Altogether, the businesses concerned have more than 500 vacancies to fill. \ AH

Europe and was the fourth worst behind plants in Slovakia, Estonia and Germany. The Ghent plant also does badly on fine particulates, producing 1.5% of that year’s pollution, making it the ninth worst polluter. The worst performer in that category was in Scunthorpe in the UK. The UK had the highest number of serious polluters with 14, ahead of Germany on seven and France and Poland on five each. ArcelorMittal is Belgium’s sole entry on the list. The company said it was in line with all applicable environmental standards. \ AH

Council of State rejects Bombardier tram contract appeal The Council of State has rejected an appeal by the Bruges-based division of Canadian tram and train constructor Bombardier against a decision by Flemish public transport authority De Lijn to buy 146 new trams from the Spanish manufacturer CAF at a cost of €320 million. Last year the Council of State annulled the decision to buy from CAF, on the grounds that CAF and Bombardier had not been treated equally on the question of calculating the worth of preventive maintenance. In June 2016, Bombardier lifted its objection over the first tranche of 24 low-floor trams by CAF, while there appeared to be a possibility the two companies could work on the order together. That possibility came to nothing and Bombardier revived its case before the Council of State.

DeLijnsaidtheCouncilofStatehad confirmed the authority’s tendering procedures had been carried out properly. CAF won the contract on price terms, De Lijn said. “Taken globally, purchase, maintenance and energy consumption were 5% more advantageous,” the company said. “This ruling allows us to go ahead with ordering the new trams,” De Lijn CEO Roger Kesteloot said. “That allows us to go ahead with renewing our tram fleet, in the first place by replacing 24 coast trams.”

\ AH

\ InnOVATIOn

july 19, 2017

The food network

WeeK in innovation

innovation cluster unites agri-business to push research forward alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

flandErsfood.com

n a recent report on innovation in the Belgian food industry produced by the industry federation Fevia, part of the credit for the country’s advances over its foreign competitors was given to Flanders’ Food. But who or what is Flanders’ Food? “Flanders’ Food is a public-private partnership,” explains Veerle Rijckaert, the organisation’s community and new business development manager. “We were founded by Fevia Vlaanderen, with about 10 founding member companies. We receive structural funding from the Flemish government, topped up by membership fees from the companies.” Flanders’ Food started in 2005. According to the latest figures from 2016, the organisation now has 350 members. About two-thirds of them are producers of food and food ingredients, while the rest is made up of companies from sectors like machinery and technology, animal feed and retail. The organisation receives funding from the Flemish government and sets up projects with universities, university colleges and other research organisations. “We submit dossiers to Vlaio, the government’s agency for innovation and entrepreneurship, and it evaluates them for funding,” Rijckaert says. “Vlaio sees Flanders’ Food and the other spearhead clusters as their front office – in this way we have a direct link to the Flemish authorities and support them in their actions. From 2018, this will be especially true once we become a spearhead cluster for the agri-food industry.” The Flemish authorities initiated five spearhead clusters: energy, sustainable chemistry, materials, logistics and transportation, and agri-food. Each cluster aims to increase the competitiveness of its sector and improve collaboration by connecting with knowledge centres, other sectors and the authorities. “Until recently, there were several organisations involved in research, innovation and so on,” Rijckaert says. “Their funding was more scattered and they were not really focused on any specific themes or organisations. The government decided to focus instead on areas that are already economically important and strong.” The aim is to help make the sectors leaders in Europe and around the world. “Flanders’ Food applied to become the spearhead cluster for agri-food, and we were approved,” Rijckaert says. Between 2018 and 2028, the organisation will receive €500,000 a year. Membership fees are expected to match government funding, bringing the total annual

Cancer fund Kom op tegen kanker has given €833,000 to the Limburg Clinical Research Program. The funding is a major boost for the programme run by Hasselt University, Jessa Hospital and East Limburg Hospital in Genk, and is directed at two large-scale, four-year research projects focused on improved diagnosis and treatment, for lung and breast cancer in particular. The first team will receive €437,000 and focus on finding biomarkers – substances in the blood that indicate the presence of disease – to detect the risk of relapse. The other €396,000 goes to a team focusing on whether low-level light therapy can prevent radiation burns among patients with particular types of cancer.

salty water makes for tastier tomatoes

Flanders’ Food gives companies access to processing plants so they can test new methods and technologies

budget to €1 million. “Flanders’ Food is not the spearhead cluster,” Rijckaert says. “We are its co-ordinators. The spearhead cluster is the eco-system for innovation in the agri-food industry. As well as agrifood companies it includes research organisations and other partners.” Flanders’ Food is also involved in European projects and provides its members with access to funding from the EU, while strengthening their position on the continent. A big advantage of a structure like Flanders’ Food, says Rijckaert, is that the organisation gives small and medium-sized companies access to facilities they would never be able to afford otherwise. One example is Food Pilot, a project set up in 2011 with Ilvo, the institute for agricultural and fisheries research. It provides companies with access to food processing facilities on a pilot scale, giving them the opportunity to scale up new products, methods and technologies. “The food industry in Flanders is heavily weighted toward small and medium-sized companies,” Rijckaert says. “This impacts how innovations are picked up and how quickly they are implemented. Food Pilot is very interesting for the companies because they can work on new things without having to invest in addi-

tional production facilities and equipment or stop their existing production lines to do a test run. This is crucial to making innovation happen.” Flanders’ Food also puts its members in contact with research organisations and other food and non-food companies, increasing the potential for synergy. According to the latest annual report by Fevia, the Belgian food industry is more innovative than any other in Europe, especially in food processing, with almost half of all producers having introduced innovations in production processes between 2012 and 2014. The Belgian figure of 47% compares favourably with Germany (17%), France (26%) and the Netherlands (33%). Local companies also scored highly for organisational and marketing innovation, with 46% of them recording new innovations, compared to 40% in France, 39% in Germany and 35% in the Netherlands. With the help of Flanders’ Food, Rijckaert says, the Belgian food industry is succeeding in turning ideas into research and, ultimately, concrete innovations. Rijckaert has a formula for that success: “Research is a way of turning money into knowledge. The next step – innovation – is even more important, because you turn that knowledge back into money.”

Digital learning platform raises €3.5 million for expansion datacamP.com

A Flemish company offering online training in data analysis has raised €3.5 million from an American venture capital firm. DataCamp was established at the end of 2013 by Jonathan Cornelissen, Martijn Theuwissen and Dieter De Mesmaeker. As well as its headquarters in Leuven, it has an office in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company offers a learning platform with interactive online lessons on data analysis, according to a “freemium” model: the first hour of the modules is free, but users have to pay for the rest. The platform has about one million users, with the free introduction courses being

Funding boost for cancer research

the most popular. About 30,000 people are currently paying for courses. DataCamp has an annual turnover of €8 million. To accelerate its development, it has raised €3.5 million from Arthur Ventures, which mainly focuses on technology companies outside California’s Silicon Valley. The main target group is staff in the business world: 40% of current users are employees at companies. Large companies like consultancy firm Deloitte and online tourist accommodation platform Airbnb both require staff to take a DataCamp course. Among the other users, one in five is a student and one in 10 a professor.

With the capital injection, DataCamp plans to create separate lesson packages to meet companies’ specific needs. \ Andy Furniere

Water your tomato plants with salty water if you want to enhance their flavour, say researchers at Ghent University (UGent). When cultivators focus on taste, their tomatoes are smaller. If they focus on size, the tomatoes are less flavourful. The new findings by UGent’s bioengineering department should help in growing tomatoes that are both large and tasty. Tomato plants take up less saltwater than they do fresh water, and the resulting increase in natural sugars improves the taste. To test how plants react to certain conditions, the researchers used sensors to measure the diameter of the plant and the amount of water flowing through it.

App improves health of diabetics

The first results of Diabetes on the Run, a trial project in which 100 people with type 2 diabetes were assisted by an app, are encouraging, according to the organisers. The patients in general lost weight and had lower blood pressure. The app simplifies the treatment procedure by connecting patients and their health-care worker. After entering their blood values, the patients receive standard advice as well as personal feedback from their assigned health-care professional. Via a chat system and video calls, the professionals can monitor patients’ situations more closely. The project is being carried out by home healthcare organisation Solidariteit voor het Gezin and the Bond Moyson mutuality. \ AF

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\ eDUCATIOn

july 19, 2017

Doel’s Ark

WeeK in education

Ku leuven students breathe new life into flanders’ almost ghost town andy furniere More articles by Andy \ flanderstoday.eu

doElland.BE

he little district of Doel, part of Beveren, East Flanders, became famous in the 1960s when it was announced that it would have to make way for the expansion of the port of Antwerp. Since then the town has faced looming extinction, making headlines time and again as residents moved out or protesters moved in. But now a group of architects from the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) is trying to breathe new life into the area – before it’s too late. The plans to expand the port of Antwerp on to the left bank of the Scheldt river were controversial from the beginning. In the 1970s, they were modified to reflect the concerns of local residents, but in 2002, the government of Flanders announced plans to increase the port’s container capacity with the construction of the Saeftinghe dock in Doel’s place. The new plans were met with widespread protest, and artists and activist groups, including Doel 2020, battled to stop the town’s demise. Their struggle finally paid off last year, when both the European Court of Justice and the Belgian Council of State declared the plans illegal. The government, they ruled, did not follow the correct procedures when it came to compensating the loss of natural habitat. “A new procedure has been put in place by different stakeholders to find alternative solutions,” says Joris Van Reusel, lecturer at the KU Leuven campuses in Brussels and Ghent and one of the driving forces behind the new project Doelland. It should be possible, he continues “to reconcile the interests of the town with those of the port. The port should be able to more efficiently increase its capacity, on a smaller scale”. Van Reusel hopes for a similar

In June, students and lecturers from kU Leuven spent a week living in a container house in Doel

compromise to the one reached in March over the disputed Oosterweel connection in Antwerp. In that case, activists and the local government reached an agreement after more than 20 years of dispute. A report on the revised plans for Doel is expected in October.

display at the De Doolen cultural centre. The Doelland Expo features architectural plans, scale models and visual materials. “With its unique polder landscape, Doel could be an ideal home for a small university campus focusing on innovative

Action has to be taken to revive Doel – not by repairing the past, but by creating a new future “Still, it will take maybe another 10 years before any concrete works will be carried out on a more innovative port expansion,” says Van Reusel. “In the meantime, action has to be taken to revive Doel – not by repairing the past, but by creating a new future for the town.” Over the last two years, students and lecturers from KU Leuven’s architecture department have teamed up with outside experts to come up with ways to bring Doel back to life. Their ideas are now on

biological agriculture and aquaculture,” says Van Reusel. “The arrival of scientists and students could also stimulate the local economy with new labs, student accommodation and catering businesses.” The campus, Van Reusel continues, could also attract innovative companies, and the area holds potential for nature tourism and

sundays until end august

Q&a

When do most students appeal? The appeals are submitted throughout the year, with clear peaks in July, September and October – after the final exam periods.

Doelland expo

OC De Doolen, Engelsesteenweg 8, Doel

ondErwijs.vlaandErEn.BE/nl/raad

Flanders’ Council for Disputes about Decisions on Study Progress is the agency that considers students’ appeals of exam results. A council spokesperson explains what it entails Are more students challenging their exam results? In 2016, the council received 699 disputes, including 219 from students challenging their exam results. That’s only five more cases than in 2015. After years in which the numbers rose, we’re now actually seeing stability.

education. “The existing infrastructure, including the old barns, could be used for various projects, and there is a lot of available space for new buildings and initiatives.” In June, a number of students and lecturers from KU Leuven moved to Doel for about a week. They stayed in a wooden container house, dubbed the Doelland Ark, from where they observed the town’s daily life, carried out actions to inform people about their research and worked to restore parks and walking paths. “There are only some 20 people left in Doel, but the town is still very much alive – it’s not a ghost town,” Van Reusel says. “It attracts tourists, photographers, hikers, churchgoers and families who come back as part of a tradition.” The town has also attracted vandalism; some people, Van Reusel says, consider Doel a place where they can do whatever they want. During their stay, the students witnessed two break-in attempts on vacant houses. A report summarising their observations will be published in September. The architecture department at KU Leuven has also announced that it will continue conducting research on Doel over the next three years. In the meantime, Van Reusel says the local government should allow renovations, new construction and the sale of houses in Doel. Maatschappij Linkerscheldeoever, the public agency managing the left bank of the Scheldt, owns most of the town’s buildings but has not put any of them up for sale. The local council has also forbidden the construction of any new houses. According to Van Reusel, this is a real shame: “There are a lot of people who’d like to live here.”

Have some students have actually hired lawyers to dispute their exam results? Students can be assisted by a lawyer throughout the entire appeal procedure. In 2016, 88 students opted for counsel, so the majority go through it on their own.

In February, however, the number of appeals drops. We think this is because students hope to pass their exams by resitting them, instead of contesting the results. What other trends have you noticed? More than 60% of the appeals are filed against universities, which is surprising because in the 20152016 academic year there were more students registered at university colleges than universities – 118,000 versus 116,000.

We don’t have a clear explanation for this, but one reason might be that university students are better informed about their appeal options.

When students are assisted by a legal advisor, there is a better chance that their appeal will be considered admissible. We are seeing, however, that more and more universities and university colleges are also hiring lawyers to defend their own interests.

Turning refugees into entrepreneurs The University College Leuven Limburg (UCLL) in Hasselt, with London South Bank University and University College Zuyd in the Netherlands, has set up a project to help recognised asylum-seekers start their own businesses or find jobs. The project will look into what the asylumseekers want to do, what their strengths are and any related education or experience. They will also analyse the obstacles for refugees in starting their own businesses or getting jobs. The team will collaborate with refugee organisations, employment and training agency VDAB, employers’ organisations and entrepreneurs. Over the next two years, the team hopes to help at least 120 refugees start their own enterprise or find steady jobs.

ULB chair wants to merge universities

The chair of the Frenchspeaking Free University of Brussels (ULB) has told De Tijd that he would like to see his university merge with the Dutch-speaking Free University (VUB). The ULB and VUB were a single university until 1969, when they split into separate entities along language lines. Pierre Gurdjian said it would be a logical strategy to reunite the universities. “We would have more impact on the international stage as one university in the European capital,” he said. The political structure of Belgium, with education falling under the competence of the communities, impedes this merger, he said. “If we work on this together, we can mobilise the necessary support in the political world.”

€40m extra for special needs students

Since the ruling known as the M decree, more pupils with special educational needs have been going to mainstream schools, where they are supported by staff from special education. From 1 September, this support will be reorganised: special needs students in regular education can turn to support networks in which special needs and regular teachers will group their expertise. The creation of these networks has led to insecurity for schools, teachers and parents, and education minister Hilde Crevits had promised extra funding for the networks. Special needs schools will now receive an extra €40 million in the 2017-2018 academic year. \ AF

\ Senne Starckx

\ LIVInG

WeeK in activitieS Flanders sings With the goal of bringing people together through singing, this festival travels around Flanders throughout the year with giant sing-along parties in different cities. Participants sing popular, well-known songs in Dutch, English and French. On the national holiday, there are simultaneous editions in Brussels and Bruges. 21 July 20.00, Vossenplein, Brussels and Grote Markt, Bruges; free \ vlaanderenzingt.be

The Big slide

What could be more fun on a hot summer day than whooshing down a giant water slide? This pop-up attraction on the beach at Ostend is 150 metres long and only lasts one weekend. Book your ticket in advance for an hour of unlimited sliding, as it will sell out. Bring your inflatable ring or pool float or rent one on site. 21-23 July 10.00-22.00, Ostend in front of Thermae Palace Hotel; €10 \ thebigslide.be

Circus and Magic in the Park

Josaphat Park in Schaerbeek will be overrun with enchanting entertainment for young and old, including circus acts, street theatre, magicians, jugglers, balloon artists, stilt-walkers and more. 22-23 July 14.00-17.00, Josaphatpark, Schaerbeek, Brussels; free \ tinyurl.com/circusandmagic

Ghent Bicycle Loop

Discover the greenbelt surroundings of Ghent by bike. Follow the entire 80-kilometre route through Desteldonk, Wondelgem, Drongen and Zwijnaarde or pick a shorter section at each starting point. There are also easy routes for kids and families. Register in advance via the website or on the day itself. 23 July, across East Flanders; €4 \ buitenband.be

Beach Run

This evening fun run in Koksijde is an annual tradition for all ages, with two youth runs (1K and 2K), plus a 5K and a 10K for the grownups. A portion of the registration fee goes to Think Pink! to support breast cancer research. 26 July 17.00-22.00, Zeedijk, Sint-Idesbald (Koksijde); €3 \ koksijde.be

\ 10

Rite of passage

menin gate memorial marks 90 years of honouring missing soldiers denzil walton More articles by Denzil \ flanderstoday.eu

very evening at 20.00, the traffic passing through the Menin Gate in Ypres is halted to allow a short, poignant ceremony to take place. The Last Post is played by local buglers to remember those who lost their lives during the First World War. The Menin Gate was chosen as the location of this ceremony, which has been staged here every evening since 1929 – apart from during the Second World War – because it was from this spot that countless thousands of soldiers set off for the front. All too few made the return journey. In the middle ages, what was to become the Menin Gate was called the Hangwaertpoort and was a narrow gateway on the eastern side of the town. By the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the gateway had become known as the Menenpoort, because it marked the start of the road leading to the town of Menen, about 16 kilometres away. During the war, this road became known to the British Army as the Menin Road, and the gateway was called the Menin Gate. The gate was guarded by two stone lions, which in 1936 were donated to Australia by the mayor of Ypres as a gesture of friendship and an acknowledgement of the sacrifices of Australia’s soldiers. Earlier this year, as part of the 100th anniversary commemorations of the Third Battle of Ypres, the lions were returned to their symbolic home at the Menin Gate. Here they will stand on display before being returned to the Australian War Memorial after Armistice Day, 11 November. During the war, Ypres suffered

considerable damage, and the Menin Gate was not left unscathed. Most notably, in the spring of 1915 an intensive German bombardment on the town was carried out by long-range, heavy German artillery, including the huge 42cm howitzer nicknamed Big Bertha by the British Army. By 1917, German artillery shelling had laid waste to much of Ypres, although photographs show the Menin Gate still standing, if only

just. The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing was inaugurated on 24 July 1927 by Field Marshal Lord Plumer in the presence of King Albert, General Foch of France, hundreds of local inhabitants, veterans of the First World War and relatives of fallen soldiers. The ceremony was

24 july 11.00

also broadcast on the radio in the UK, allowing millions to listen in. The memorial bears the names of 54,389 officers and soldiers who fell in the Ypres Salient before 16 August 1917 and whose graves are unknown. The names are engraved in Portland Stone panels fixed to the inner walls of the central Hall of Memory, to the sides of the staircases leading to the upper exterior level and on the walls on the north and south sides of the structure. At the end of the inauguration service, buglers of the Somerset Light Infantry sounded the Last Post. This was repeated the following year, although the daily sounding of the Last Post didn’t start until 11 November 1929. From then, the Last Post has been sounded at the Menin Gate Memorial every night and in all weathers. The only exception was during the German occupation of Ypres from May 1940 to September 1944, when the ceremony was held at the Brookwood Military Cemetery in England. The ceremony resumed at the Menin Gate on the evening that Polish forces liberated Ypres, in spite of heavy fighting still going on in other parts of the town. On 24 July at 11.00, a ceremony organised by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission will mark the 90th anniversary of the unveiling of the Menin Gate Memorial. The ceremony is open to everyone; guests are asked to arrive half an hour before it begins. Menenstraat, Ypres

bite

antwerp’s newest cafe serves coffee with a safety disclaimer Texas Coffee, a American-style breakfast place, has just opened in Antwerp, and it’s about much more than eggs and bacon. Earlier this year, one of its owners, Alexander Provoost, grew tired of going to less-than-exciting brunch spots with his fiancé and co-owner, Cheeru Mampaey. “You’re looking at granola this, yogurt that, avocado this,” Provoost says. “At some point I really just wanted bacon and eggs.” Texas Coffee has a menu to satisfy any appetite. It features classics like eggs and pancakes, and bacon comes standard with most meals. It also has some lesser-known specialities like the Fluffernutter, a peanut butter and marshmallow creme sandwich. While the food is perfect for curing a hangover on a Sunday morning, it’s the coffee that makes this place truly unique. The first big attraction is the coffee cone – a hot cup of coffee served in an ice cream cone lined with chocolate. The oxymoronic treat was created in the Netherlands and has a lifespan of about 20 minutes before the coffee starts to seep through the cone. “We have the exclusive rights to it, so it’s something you won’t see anywhere else in Belgium,”

Provoost says. “I know there will be others trying to copy us, but you can only find the original at our place.” Texas Coffee also sells four speciality coffees, two of which have enough caffeine to – literally – kill you. The Biohazard has more than 900 milligrams of caffeine in a single cup; six cups will stop your heart. Its supplies are extremely limited. The first month is already sold out. Death Wish, meanwhile, has 728 milligrams of caffeine. “We sell it with a disclaimer: one per customer, no pregnant women, no one with a heart condition,” Provoost says. “And no, we don’t sell it to children.” The other two coffees are the €20-a-cup Kopi Luwak, brewed with coffee beans that have been eaten and defecated by the Asian palm civet, and the Black Ivory. At €60 a cup, Black Ivory’s main selling point is its exclusivity – Texas Coffee only serves five cups a month. And yes, it too, is already sold out. “We’re going to have to come up with a waiting list,” Provoost says. “Just like with the newest Chanel handbag, you’re going to have to wait for your Black Ivory.” \ Taylor Kinnerup

tEXas-coffEE.BE

july 19, 2017

Summer slopes

limburg’s snow valley provides year-round skiing and snowboarding catherine Kosters Follow Catherine on Twitter \ @ckosters

“W

hen I tell people I have to work during the summer, they act quite surprised,” says Nick Vanoirbeek. “We have to maintain the slopes and can’t let the snow melt, so it makes sense to stay open.” It might be 25°C outside, but at Snow Valley in Peer, Limburg, it’s icy cold. Two rows of artificial Christmas trees flank the entrance, creating a faux-Alpine atmosphere complete with pristinely white pine needles and mountain vistas on the walls. This is Flanders’ ultimate winter wonderland. Snow Valley welcomed its first winter sports enthusiasts in 1997, making it the oldest indoor ski slope in the country. It’s also the biggest, with four slopes spanning a total length of 420 metres – and an impressive extension well under way. The complex is open year round, except for a short break in June. During winter holidays, the place sees close to 1,000 skiers a day, though summers are much quieter. On a recent Sunday, some 20 skiers and one lonely snowboarder were making their way downhill. “Ski

the season.” Snow Valley has about 30 instructors, five of whom work during the summer. On the slope, a little boy is practising snowplough turns under the close supervision of his instructor. Elsewhere, a group of skiers focus on technique, as they race down a bumpy stretch of the trail at breakneck speed. They’re dodging moguls, Vanoirbeek tells me. Moguls, in case you didn’t know, are bumps created in the snow. Snow Valley’s biggest slope is 235 metres long; an extra 115 metres will be added in September, making it the longest and steepest indoor slope in Europe. The sharp decline will resemble that of real mountains, and you can follow the construction process through a live webcam feed. Those just starting out can make use of a beginner trail made up of two bunny slopes; it’s perfect for children and for adults first venturing into the world of skiing. For seasoned shredders there is the Fun Park, a freestyle course filled with enough rails, jumps and boxes to scare off only but the most fearless of skiers and snowboarders.

A group of skiers focus on technique, as they race down a bumpy stretch of the trail at breakneck speed camps for children account for a large chunk of our summer activities,” Vanoirbeek says. “And then there are the die-hards, who just have to hit the slopes, no matter

Not wanting to end up in hospital, I decide to stay clear of it. The snow here is obtained from a mix of chemicals. The resultant ice is then ground into powder. The

snowvallEy.BE

when complete, snow Valley’s biggest slope will be the longest and the steepest indoor slope in europe

process is patented, and the result feels just like the real deal. “You can even make perfect snowballs,” Vanoirbeek says enthusiastically. A combination of ground- and air-cooling ensures that the snow doesn’t melt. It’s usually at least 2.5 metres thick but more has been added while the slope is being expanded. Flanders may not be the obvious skiing destination, but Snow Valley attracts some of the best in the game. Professional Flemish snowboarder Seppe Smits honed his skills and trademark tricks here

before winning medals at World Championships in Norway, Spain, South Korea and Canada. The complex also has its own racing and freestyle teams and employs instructors with national and international titles. These include Eric Stappers, who won an Olympic medal when he was only 16 and now teaches slalom and mogul skiing. Summer skiing may sound like an oddity, but once you try it, you’ll see the advantages. If it’s sweltering outside, the refreshing temperature of near 0°C feels great. And

there are no crowds and no onlookers if you’re a little shy about learning to ski or snowboard. And when you’re done schussing – or, in my case, tumbling down – the chalet-style canteen awaits, serving a hearty lunch and enough alcohol to compete with any mountain hut in the Alps. So don your best winter clothes and go hit the slopes. Skiing starts at €18 an hour without equipment. A special summer deal offers four hours for €20 without or €27 with equipment

Hasselt celebrates the miracle of the bleeding host With the decline in the number of Catholics taking part in regular worship in Flanders, many of the rituals and traditions associated with its legends have lost their meaning, or disappeared entirely. But one miracle is experiencing a revival 700 years after it occurred. Het Heilig Sacrament van Mirakel (The Holy Sacrament of the Miracle) is being celebrated in Hasselt and in nearby Viversel, part of Zolder. Pastor Jan Philippe, who acts as the spiritual advisor to the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament of Hasselt, is organising the anniversary celebrations. “In 1317, a local pastor visited a dying man in Viversel to grant him confession and last communion,” Philippe says. “The pastor left the box with the communion wafer

The 700-year-old bleeding host, pictured in a floral arrangement by Dutch photographer Bas Meeuws

in an empty room next door, and when he went back to get it, the

wafer was lying next to the broken box. It was covered in blood.” According to the narrative, while the pastor was with the dying man, someone tried to touch the wafer when it started to bleed. “The pastor didn’t know what to do,” Philippe continues. “He decided to take the wafer to the Herkenrode Abbey in Hasselt.” Walking through the fields, the pastor encountered a herd of sheep, which kneeled before him. When he finally reached the abbey, a clock inside began ringing on its own. The pastor left the bleeding host at the abbey and it remained there until 1804, when it was moved to its current location in the SaintQuentin Cathedral in the city centre. Since then, the wafer has

been displayed every year on 25 July, the day when the miracle occurred. This year marks the miracle’s 700th anniversary. In the lead-up to the celebrations, the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament is organising a 40-hour adoration in the Virga Jesse Basilica, a short walk from the cathedral. On 25 July, the city bishop will lead a mass, followed by the annual display of the host. At the Radisson Blu Hotel, internationally renowned Catholic scholars will debate the true meaning of the wafer and the Eucharist. That evening, Hasselt will see its first Catholic procession in 40 years.

25 july

HEiligsacramEnt.BE

Viversel, meanwhile, is hosting a re-enactment of the miracle. The town is also organising bike tours to the cathedral in Hasselt. The tours start at a small hill in the middle of the Circuit Zolder race track, where a chapel dedicated to the Sacrament of the Miracle was erected in 1854. Pastor Philippe has no doubt the miracle actually occurred. “We believe it really happened, but what’s more important is that the story represents the meaning of the Eucharist,” he says. “Every mass, Jesus Christ gives himself to us; that is the true wonder.” \ Daan Bauwens

Across Hasselt and Viversel

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july 19, 2017

WeeK in artS & culture willebroek brass band wins world championship

The Willebroek brass band has become the first in Belgium to win the World Concourse for Brass Bands, with victory in the finals in Kerkrade, the Netherlands, last week. It scored 97.5 out of 100 to take the top prize. The band has already won 19 Belgian and three European titles. “This was the only thing that was missing,” director Frans Violet told Radio 2. The band came second in the finals – which only take place every four years – in 2001 and 2005. Brass Band Heist of Heist-opden-Berg came seventh in the competition.

Firth and schoenaerts shoot scene in Jette bar

“The Algiers’ sections of a Happy Moment” by David Claerbout

Just like the movies

antwerp exhibition explores blurred lines between film and photography christophe verbiest More articles by Christophe \ flanderstoday.eu

An exhibition at Antwerp’s FoMu focuses on 21st-century video artists and photographers to explore the influence each art form has on the other.

n the evolution from photography to moving images, British photographer Eadweard Muybridge was a trailblazer. In the 1870s, he analysed movement by using a series of cameras, positioned next to each other and perpendicular to the direction of the movement. Among other revelations, it delivered the first proof that there are points when none of the four feet of a galloping horse is touching the ground. A rotogravure print of Muybridge showing this is on view at Antwerp’s photography museum, FoMu. It’s surprising that The Still Point of the Turning World: Between Film and Photography doesn’t open with it, and instead begins on an anecdotal note: a very early short film (1895) by the cinema pioneer Lumière Brothers showing some 100 photographers exiting a boat on which they’d had a meeting. The photographers filmed! And the filmmakers photographed, too, because we see one of the attendees taking a quick picture.

These 19th-century works are a nice little extra, since The Still Point of the Turning World doesn’t aim to give a historical overview of the reciprocal influence between cinema and photography. The relationship between the two art forms is illustrated mostly with 21st-century works, with a focus on video artists using photography and photographers using video. An example of the latter is “Hemony”, a short film by Ghent photographer Dirk Braeckman that shows a chiming church clock in close-up. It’s the absence of sound that makes this work so notable. Geert Goiris is another example. His one-minute video “Frozen” contains one camera movement from left to right. It shows a scene at a coastline that looks like a photo but is in fact a moving image. The same goes for “Re-run” by Raqs Media Collective. It’s based on a famous photo by Henri CartierBresson picturing a bank run in Shanghai in 1948. The Indian collective recreated the scene in a film in which the actors move very, very slowly, almost unseen. It brings to mind the work of American video artist Bill Viola, minus the catharsis. At first, the two pictures by Japan’s Hiroshi Sugimoto seem a bit simple.

fotomusEum.BE

They show an American film palace with a highly illuminated screen at its heart. But this is not just some light on a screen, the wall text accompanying the photos explains. To create the photo, a film was projected and Sugimoto left the shutter open for its duration. It’s a way of capturing a whole film in one photographic image. Of course, due to the overexposure, the result is a white rectangle. It’s a pity that we don’t know which film was captured. Israeli Nir Evron has come up with a variation on that. He made a picture of every frame of the nine remaining episodes of a film series by movie pioneer George Méliès. After superimposing all the frames on each other, he made one print for each of the episodes. On the nine pictures, shown in a three-by-three grid, some visual elements of each episode are still discernible, though the narrative, of course, is completely lost. The absolute highlight of the exhibition is Antwerp-based David Claerbout, who has two works on show. “The Algiers’ Sections of a Happy Moment” (pictured) shows a football game on the roof of a build-

until 8 october

ing in the kasbah of Algiers. This 37-minute video consists of 600 photos – selected from 50,000 – taken from a plethora of points of view. Combining them in a film, one particular moment is stretched out into a period of time, as if a photo becomes a film. That’s even more the case with Claerbout’s other work, KING (after Alfred Wertheimer’s 1956 Portrait of a Young Man Named Elvis Presley). The artist used a picture Wertheimer took in 1956 of Elvis Presley, only a few weeks before “Heartbreak Hotel” became a breakout hit. Using the latest technology, Claerbout lets the camera get into the picture and circle round Presley’s body. How did he do that, you wonder? It’s a 3D animation for which the virtual body of an Elvis lookalike was covered with pieces of Presley’s body, scavenged from hundreds of pictures of the King. The feeling you get as a viewer is that of a camera slowly floating through a frozen space. It looks like the perfect symbiosis of still and moving images. That’s a paradox, of course, and this is what makes KING so mysterious and uncanny.

FoMu

British actor Colin Firth and Flemish actor Matthias Schoenaerts took to a bar in Jette last week to shoot scenes from the new movie Kursk by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt). Kursk tells the story of the Russian nuclear-powered submarine of the same name that sank in the Barents Sea in 2000, with the loss of all 118 crew. Vinterberg chose the Excelsior on Sint-Pieterskerkstraat because of its look, according to a production spokesperson, talking to Bruzz. Much of Kursk is being shot in Belgium, including the underwater scenes, which are being produced at the AED film studios in Lint, Antwerp province. Kursk is the second Vinterberg film starring Schoenaerts, following 2015’s Far from the Madding Crowd. Kursk is one of four films starring Schoenaerts slated for release in 2018.

new public work by Borremans in Ghent Ghent has unveiled a second workofpublicartbyrenowned Flemish artist Michaël Borremans. The sculpture “De Passanten” (The Passers-By) is located at the square in front of the entryway to the new De Krook library and media centre in the Zuid neighbourhood. The three-metre high statue shows four figures with their heads leaning on each other - literally putting their heads together. They symbolise, said the artist, the connection with knowledge, culture and each other that visitors to De Krook experience. The brightly coloured bronze sculpture was hand painted by Borremans.

Waalsekaai 47, Antwerp

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Speaking with one voice arts institute is a one-stop shop for culture in flanders tom Peeters More articles by Tom \ flanderstoday.eu

flandErsartsinstitutE.BE

ast year, the Flanders Arts Institute welcomed 360 curators and industry professionals from around the world. Almost all of them were given a custom-made programme, allowing them to visit local studios and meet artists whose work interested them. These invitations proved to be an effective way to boost the international careers of local artists. The mission of the institute, which was founded in January 2015, is broader, however. “Our activities are concentrated around three axes,” explains general director Felix De Clerck. “We are a local arts information centre, we have a research and development department, which is constantly monitoring the field, and we act as a kind of dating agency, bringing together people and ideas to support careers in the arts.” That’s exactly what happened this year when the institute invited Mami Kataoka, chief curator at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo and, more importantly, the artistic director of the forthcoming Biennale of Sydney. The event’s entire programme, which takes place from March to June next year, hasn’t been announced yet, but De Clerck says her final selection “will include four or five artists we brought to her attention”. The Flanders Arts Institute, based in the centre of Brussels, is the result of the merger of three expertise and support centres: the Flemish Theatre Institute (VTi), the Flemish Institute for Visual, Audiovisual and Media Art (Bam) and Flanders Music Centre (Muziekcentrum). VTi and Bam, which oversaw performing and visual arts, had a strong focus on research and had already spoken of their intention

A delegation of arts professionals from Iran and Armenia visit the Villa empain in Brussels, thanks to Flanders Arts Institute

to collaborate more intensively, according to Dirk De Wit and Delphine Hesters, the organisation’s head of visual arts and head of performing arts, respectively. Feelings were more mixed, however, at Flanders Music Centre, which already had a strong international network. “Not everyone in the music sector was convinced a merger would be beneficial,” explains Wouter Degraeve, head of music at the Flanders Arts Institute. “The distance from the sector has grown a bit, but on the other hand, now we can do research, too, and there are obviously more opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations.” Degraeve, who moved from Flanders Music Centre to the Arts

Institute, is currently preparing the release of a survey into the presence of non-classical Flemish music on international stages. De Clerck, meanwhile, points out that important issues such as sustainability, diversity and the socioeconomic position of the artist aren’t limited to specific disciplines. “Speaking with one voice is also beneficial for our external relations,” he says. “Both local and foreign parties benefit from our one-stop shop to reach the arts in Flanders. It makes us more visible, as a guide and as a facilitator, in an already very competitive field.” He sees the constant interaction between his research capacity and the practical knowledge

of his experts as a unique force. “Typically our organisation will conduct a major survey first,” he says. “Later, we implement the results in different disciplines.” For instance, a survey of Flanders’ cultural centres showed that these art hubs did virtually nothing with visual arts. “To increase local know-how, we organised workshops about creating an exhibition: preparing an estimate, going on studio visits, visual art design and so on.” Bearing in mind the €2 million annual budget ( for a population of 6.5 million people), De Clerck is convinced Flanders is punching way above its weight on an international level. “We are still surfing on the wave of an arts scene

that’s profiting from an enormous amount of individual talent and a bottom-up cultural policy that was able to capture this at the right moment,” he says. The Flanders Arts Institute is now developing a method to measure the international appeal of their artists. “So, in the near future we will be able to pinpoint more profoundly what really made the difference,” explains De Clerck. “Was it the recruitment of a professional management, the presence at an influential showcase event…?” Of course, one has to be aware of the reality behind the numbers, adds Hesters. “In the performance arts, international stage opportunities for our actors and dancers are the same as they were 15 years ago, but we also hear that the work needed to reach these numbers has equally increased.” In recent times, with less government money going to the arts, new international collaborations have become more focused on sharing knowledge. “For instance, a lively interaction with art scenes in North Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the Balkans is now starting to happen,” says De Wit, who supervises the institute’s international relations department. There have been successful open calls for exploratory artist visits to Beirut, and there was a Flemish presence at a contemporary dance festival in Marrakesh as well as a music festival in Rabat. “More than ever, we have to join forces and diversify our means,” says De Clerck. “There may be less money for culture as we know it, but at the same time Europe and the Flemish department of foreign affairs value the community-forming and diplomatic power of the arts.”

Knokke-Heist makes an exhibition of itself sculPturElinK.BE

When the Beaufort triennial art festival comes around, placing contemporary art works along the coast, Knokke-Heist is often one of the dissenting towns. In 2015 it complained about the art on offer and threatened to opt out next time, though it seems to have come around to the plans for Beaufort 2018. In the meantime, it’s doing its own thing. The 24th edition of Sculpture Link places 14 contemporary art works along the seafront, from Heldenplein in Heist to De Wielingen in Het Zoute. The results show just how tricky it is to match art and public space in an effective,

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inspiring way. Where the art in Beaufort tends

to interact with its environment, often venturing on to the beach or up into the dunes, Sculpture Link keeps to itself. The sculptures are ranged along the promenade and few seem to have been chosen to work with their surroundings. One exception is “Around the World” by Brussels-born artist Phil Billen, a large ring of scrap metal and wood with a boat riding around the outside (pictured). Set against a relatively clear stretch of beach, the view of the sea behind means that tankers and other boats moving off the coast often find themselves becoming part of the work.

Elsewhere, however, the subtler or more abstract works get lost in the street furniture, or are overshadowed by the sculptures put out by the town’s galleries. There are also distractions in KnokkeHeist’s permanent collection, such as Osip Zadkine’s “The Poet” on Albertplein, or “Socorristas de Biarritz X-X” by the Spanish artist Aurora Cañero, two lifeguards in the dunes between Heist and Duinbergen. In the end it’s the bigger, brasher figurative pieces in Sculpture Link that work the best. At the Heist end there is the bright “L’Hirondelle” (The Swallow) by Dutch artist

Clemens Briels, a psychedelic merging of woman and bird that recalls Niki de Saint-Phalle or Yellow Submarine. Then at the Zoute end, there is “Pluie de soleil” (Rain of Sunshine) by Flemish artist Dirk De Keyzer, a tall, curving female figure with a tiny parasol, which once again is fortunate to have only sand and some beach huts as a backdrop. Sculpture Link is a prelude to the 42nd Art Nocturne Knokke, an evening art fair at the town’s Scharpoord cultural centre. It runs from 5 to 15 August, when Sculpture Link also closes. \ Ian Mundell

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july 19, 2017

The artist at work

claSSical

Suzy Embo until 8 october

hotographer Suzy Embo, born in Antwerp in 1936, completely disappeared in the mists of time. Thanks to the exhibition Artiste photographe: Photographe d’artistes at Antwerp’s photography museum (FoMu) she gloriously resurfaces. Embo is only 20 when she gets her first gallery shows. Her playful compositions and experimentation with photographic parameters (depth of field, photograms) gain her immediate recognition. Her work changes in the 1960s when she marries sculptor Reinhoud D’haese and befriends Cobra artists Pierre Alechinsky, Christian Dotremont and the

Brussels

FoMu, Antwerp, fotomusEum.BE

sadly forgotten Corneille Hannoset. She takes loads of photos of them and of other artists. These spontaneous portraits exemplify her talent, but it’s another angle that makes her work essential viewing – the documentation of 1960s artists at work. The series on show at FoMu offers an interesting look, for instance, into how Alechinsky works. Yet they’re more than just documents. Embo’s photos are, too, works of art. A bilateral retinal detachment in 1975 leads to a partial loss of her sight. It marks the end of her professional career, though she

remains creative. In the second half of the 1970s, she publishes a wayward art

performance

viSual artS

Els de schepper: red mij

mixity summer

22 july, 20.00

Capitole, Ghent, ElsdEscHEPPEr.BE

Els de Schepper is a veteran of the Flemish entertainment industry in all its formats, from TV to theatre to pop music, but her natural element is the monologue. De Schepper’s latest production Red mij (Save Me) finds the cabaret performer doing what she does best. Accompanied only by a pianist, she muses about life in general and the life of a middle-aged Flemish woman in particular. Red mij premiered last year and is being reprised for this year’s Gentse Feesten before touring Flanders and the Netherlands extensively during the 20172018 season. (In Dutch)

until 17 september Brussels tourist office visit.brussels has been bringing forth its Mixity.Brussels 2017 programme since announcing the project with a massive open-air concert last autumn. Now, with dozens of summertime events on the agenda, the year-long showcase of cultural diversity is reaching its climax. Its centrepiece is Yo: Brus-

magazine, Siona, printed on recycled fanfold paper. Some editions are on show in Antwerp, and, although it’s difficult to read them, they look amazing. The exhibition doesn’t go into any post-1970s detail, but for the past 20 years, Embo has lived in Watermaal-Bosvoorde, Brussels. The timeline states that in 2002 she came second in a municipal photo competition. So she did continue working after her eye difficulties. But there are no traces of any of those photographs at FoMu. It doesn’t really matter, though, there’s more than enough great work to discover. \ Christophe

Verbiest

viSual artS Brussels Save/Change the City: Unbuilt Brussels #01: Archival exhibition surveys the often irresponsible evolution of the capital’s post-war urban landscape. The process was called “Brusselisation” and was resisted by many citizens, particularly the generation of ’68. Until 24 September, Civa, Kluisstraat 55

sint-niklaas

Across Brussels, miXity.BrussEls

sels Hip-Hop Generations. Hosted by Bozar, the immersive, archival exhibition spans 35 years of urban youth culture in the capital. Other highlights include the Humans of Brussels exhibition at experience. brussels and Mixity 183, a traveling pop-up museum wending its way through the capital all summer. \ GV

Tricksters: Contemporary art exhibition showcases post-modern portrayals of the enduring figure of European folklore: the trickster. Featuring works by Stephan Balleux, Joseph Beuys, Lars von Trier and more. Until 6 August, Warp, Apostelstraat 20 \ warp-art.be

muSic feStival Leuven Burn Festival: Third edition of Leuven’s free urban arts festival boasts hip-hop beats, dance crews, a poetry slam and more. 21 July from 17.00, Romaanse Poort, Brusselsestraat 61a \ burnleuven.be

family

feStival dans & tapas festival Bruges’ Kristus-Koning neighbourhood celebrates Belgian National Day by looking far beyond national borders.Thelocalcouncilhasjoined forces with dance club B-Salsa and restaurant Petite Aneth to put on a dance and tapas festival with a distinctly Latin flavour. B-Salsa

\ bozar.be

\ civa.brussels

\ Georgio Valentino

21 july, from 14.00

Belgian National Orchestra: Bozar and BNO, led by Josep Vicent and featuring violin soloist Ji-Young Lim, put on a free pre-National Day concert with works by Shostakovich, Mendelssohn and Manuel de Falla. 20 July 20.00, Bozar, Ravensteinstraat 23

Graaf Visartpark, Bruges, KristusKoning. BrugsEBuurtEn.BE

resident DJ B’latino provides the soundtrack for an all-day salsa and Argentine tango dance workshop. Spanish and fusion dishes are prepared by Petite Aneth head chef Paul Hendrickx. There’s also a summer pop-up bar serving refreshing drinks. \ GV

Turnhout

muSic feStival

sfinks mixed 27-30 july

Molenveld, Boechout (Antwerp province) sfinKs.BE

This 42nd edition of Sfinks Mixed continues a long tradition of promoting diversity. The free music festival has a reputation for building bridges between communities by annually inviting dozens of established and up-and-coming acts from around the world. This year’s headliners include Londonbased Syrian harpist Maya Youssef (pictured) and Jamaican reggae group Inner Circle, whose 1987 hit “Bad Boys” has become ubiquitous as the theme song of longrunning US reality television series Cops. There’s also a colourful world market, a kids village, parades and street theatre as well as a brand new zen garden blossoming with wellness and spirituality. \ GV

Turnhout Royale: Free roots music festival featuring classic car show and live music by American groups the Delta Bombers and Gas House Gorillas as well as Estonian rockabilly outfit Maryann & The Tri-Tones. Also games and grime for kids. 21 July 14.00, Grote Markt \ turnhout.be

feStival Ostend Fireworks Festival: Ostend’s summertime fireworks festival is a weekly event, but National Day obliges an extra edition this week. Until 15 August 22.30 or 23.00, Albert I-Promenade 64 \ visitoostende.be

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july 19, 2017

Talking Dutch donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mention the war

In response to: Antwerpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s newest cafe goes all Texas with coffee to die for Kelsey Ware: Omg, finally somewhere with eggs for breakfast!!!

derek Blyth More articles by Derek \ flanderstoday.eu

estaurant owner Cinderella Maselis has run into problems after calling her new establishment IeperEat. The restaurant, which is due to open this week, is next to the In Flanders Fields war museum in Ypres. De naam ligt heel dicht bij yperiet â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The name sounds very close to yperite, a city councillor told Radio 1, het mosterdgas dat tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog voor het eerst gebruikt werd in Ieper â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the mustard gas that was used for the first time in Ypres during the First World War. And thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not the only thing that has sparked complaints. Bovendien staan er nog bommetjes bij het logo â&#x20AC;&#x201C; On top of that, there are little bombs in the logo. En dat in voorlaatste jaar van herdenking â&#x20AC;&#x201C; And all of this in the penultimate year of commemoration. Heel onsmakelijk â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very tasteless, Ypres mayor Jan Durnez told Het Nieuwsblad. But Maselis insists the name has nothing to do with the deadly gas. â&#x20AC;&#x2122;T is zeker niet de bedoeling om mensen te choqueren of kwetsen â&#x20AC;&#x201C; I certainly didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t intend to shock anyone or hurt their feelings, she

wrote in a Facebook post. Ik ben een rasechte Ieperling â&#x20AC;&#x201C; I was born and bred in Ypres, en daarom wou ik zeker â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ieperâ&#x20AC;? in mijn naam â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and so I absolutely wanted â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ieperâ&#x20AC;? in the name. En â&#x20AC;&#x153;eatâ&#x20AC;? heb ik gekozen â&#x20AC;&#x201C; And I chose â&#x20AC;&#x153;eatâ&#x20AC;? omdat Britten zeker zouden weten dat ze bij ons kunnen eten â&#x20AC;&#x201C; because the British (who visit Ypres in large numbers) would then know that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a restaurant. De schrijfwijze is dus totaal niet dezelfde als â&#x20AC;&#x153;yperietâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201C; So itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s written in a totally different way from yperite, she insisted. What about the little bomb next to the name? Well, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not what it seems. Het piratenbommetje â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the little pirate bomb (the kind you see in cartoons) naast de tomaat â&#x20AC;&#x201C; next to the tomato verwijst naar een smaakbom â&#x20AC;&#x201C; refers to a flavour bomb, she explained. Want we willen divers en lekker eten serveren â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Because we want to serve varied and tasty food. Not everyone is convinced. Een massavernietigingswapen als naam â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A weapon of mass destruction as a name, noted a researcher at the In Flanders Fields museum. Dat is erover â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going too far.

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ÂŠ Courtesy Facebook/Iepereat

The council would like the name to be changed, but it seems itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s too late. Het drukwerk en promotie zijn rond â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the printing and advertising are done, Maselis explained. She now wants to focus attention on the cooking. Onze facebook pagina is er om de mensen te informeren omtrent ons eten â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Our Facebook page is there to tell people about our food maar niet om discussies te voeren over de eerste wereldoorlog â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but not to have discussions about the First World War. So please: Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mention the war.

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Falah Mustafa @FalahMustafa On behalf of the #KRG #DFR, I wish a happy #FlandersDay to the people and government of #Flanders. @Flanders_DFA

Emma @emma_4b Very happy to be running around Ghent again. Watersportbaan, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re next!đ&#x;?&#x192;đ&#x;&#x2018;&#x160; #Ghent

Jenevermuseum @JeneverBelgium Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s raining cats and dogs and #Gold in #Hasselt.

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ÂŠ Planckendael / Jonas Verhulst

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