Maverick MechelenThe little city halfway between Brussels and Antwerp has got its international due as the Financial Times puts it on the Cities of the Future top 10 list

\ 6 \ 9 \ 14

#41

8Er

kenn

ings

num

mer

P70

8816

february 24, 2016 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ rEad morE at www.flandErstoday.Eu

innovation \ P7BusinEss \ P6currEnt affairs \ P2 Education \ P9Politics \ P4 art & living \ P10

From the 1970s, Christian Kieckens has helped pave the way for the breakthrough of Flemish architecture. As the Flanders Architecture Institute honours him with a retrospective in Antwerp, he reveals his philosophical take on the trade.

When Christian Kieckens was growing up in Aalst, his parents ran a record shop. He loved the ingenious sleeve designs of labels like

Verve in the 1960s and ECM in the 1970s. Yet rather than aspiring to be a graphic designer or a musician – he envied Eric Clapton’s riffs – he fixed on the relatively sober profession of architect. His parents weren’t convinced. “My mother feared I was getting old too soon,” says Kieckens.His open-mindedness stood him in good stead when he graduated from the Sint-Lucas school of arts in Ghent in 1974. The economy was still reeling after the oil crisis the previous year, and architectural commissions were scarce. Kieckens’ class faced a bleak horizon. “We were hungry because we had no money, but we were also hungry to understand what architecture really was,” he says. “That helped us through all kinds of pain, because it wasn’t until the late ’80s that the commis-sions started coming again.”Kieckens decided to set his own brief, embarking on a two-decade research phase spanning Francesco Borromini’s Baroque churches, the Egyptian pyramids and modernist Adolf Loos’ texts, as well as the Japanese post-Metabolists. “I worked mostly on my own in a very analogue way,” he recalls, “by making analytical draw-ings. It was about searching for mentors.”In-between entering competitions, including one to redesign the Waterloo battle site south of Brussels, he stayed afloat by teaching. There were also sporadic study trips – including one funded with the proceeds from winning the Godecharle Prize for Architecture in 1981.In 1983, Kieckens founded the architectural association S/AM with Marc Dubois. “Nothing was happening, so we thought we’d try and start by creating a culture of archi-tecture,” he explains. S/AM lasted a decade, resulting in talks, excursions and exhibitions, in addition to a professional journal, and the exhibition design for the first Belgian entry at the Venice Architecture Biennale, which showcased the built work of young Flemish architects.It also sparked off several key developments: the publi-cation of the inaugural Flanders Architectural Yearbook in 1994, the opening of the Flanders Architecture Insti-tute (VAi), and the appointment of Kieckens’ former colleague bOb Van Reeth as the first Flemish Govern-ment Architect in 1999. Two years later, the Open Call scheme was introduced, allowing designers to submit proposals for government jobs in architecture and public space. “Win or not, young

continued on page 5

You read MY MindUGent students have invented headphones that check your brain waves and select music based on your mood

Flanders’ new phenoMTwenty-something author Lize Spit is wowing critics and readers with her debut Het smelt, set in her small Kempen town

The essence of architecturePioneering flemish architect christian Kieckens on building a culture

© reiner lautwein

Christian kieckens’ Caractère office building in erpe-Mere, east flanders

clodagh KinsellaMore articles by Clodagh \ flanderstoday.eu

\ 2

\ CurrenT affaIrs

The Belgian Asbestos Fund, created by the federal government to compensate sufferers of asbestos-related conditions, recognised 292 victims of

mesothelioma last year. That is the highest number since the founding of the fund in 2007 and 60% more than in 2014. Mesothelioma is a cancer caused by exposure to asbes-tos that affects the thin cell wall lining of internal organs. “Asbestos-related cancer has an incubation period of 30 to 40 years, and asbestos was used in buildings until the 1980s, so that’s perhaps why there is a peak now,” said Alexan-

der Van de Sand, spokesperson of the Asbestos Fund. “We expect to see the number of recognised victims decrease drastically by the period 2025 to 2030.”Apart from patients with mesothelioma in 2015, the fund also recognised 43 people with asbestosis and diffuse pleu-ral thickening, two other asbestos-related conditions. This number has remained stable in the last five years.In 2014, victims were compensated €11.8 million in total. It’s not yet been made public how much compensation the fund provided in 2015.

Increase in asbestos victimsPatients with asbestos-related cancer or other conditions increased by 60% last year

foxes shot by hunters in 2014, up from 11,018 in 2013. The season for hunting foxes runs from October to February, but a special season has been created from May to October

fines handed out for environmen-tal infractions in 2015, a record number, according to the Flem-ish government. Most fines were related to waste, including fly-tipping, incineration and transport

increase in the number of cyclists in the Brussels-Capital Region from 2014 to 2015, mobility minis-ter Pascal Smet said. In some places, the increase was as high as 19.5%

applications in 2015 for the rent subsidy available in Flanders, a record, housing minister Liesbeth Homans said. 41% were approved. The average subsidy comes to €143 a month

number of Belgian passports reported stolen inland and over-seas in 2015. An additional 18,665 were reported lost, including those reported lost only when the owner applied for a new one

11,870

2,022

5%7,861 2,279

The Brussels-Capital Region’s minister for environment, Céline Fremault, is to introduce a ban on single-use plastic shopping bags at supermarkets, she told the Brussels parliament’s envi-ronment committee. Fremault said that a consensus had been reached among all parties – except for MR, who were not present for the debate – that throw-away plastic bags should be banned. Multiple-use bags, paid for by customers and replaced for free when they are worn out, however, would be encouraged. The Jette municipality banned single-use bags last year but had to withdraw the measure when the Council of State ruled it was not a decision individual municipalities could take. Else-where, the major supermarket chains are encouraging custom-ers to find alternatives by charging for single-use bags and sell-ing multiple-use bags. “I am delighted that the minister has decided to make a point of banning throw-away plastic bags,” said Groen member of parliament Annemie Maes, whose party has pressed for the ban. “However, at some point she has to turn that decision into action.” Maes suggested a pilot project in municipalities that were ready to introduce the ban. One possibility, she said, was Anderlecht, where the Abattoir shopping centre implemented its own ban. \ AH

Brussels plans to ban single-use plastic shopping bagsThe internet in general and social media in particular are

increasingly responsible for the growth in sales of counter-feit goods, according to federal consumer affairs minister Kris Peeters. Last year economic inspectors confiscated 320,000 counterfeit articles, fewer than the year before, but in a more luxurious category worth a higher value. “This online evolution is the result of a sense of anonymity among sellers,” Peeters said. “If I put something up for sale on the internet, the feeling is, I’m less likely to be caught. Fortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.” Government economic inspectors work with customs, the international fraud office Olaf and the European police service Europol, he said. Last year, 1,150 inspec-tions were carried out, half of them involving the internet and social media. They seized 319,199 articles worth €12.3 million – 30% more than the €9.4 million value seized in 2014. Items being counterfeited are more likely to be luxury articles such as perfume, handbags and designer clothes, and those top-end products are more likely to be sold via social media, said Peeters.The share of online sales is also on the rise because of the

tough policy of inspectors on the ground, Peeters said. Sales of personal care products, for example, depend more on personal contact, but economic policies have seen those sales drop off. The fight against counterfeit products remains a priority for the years to come, the minister said. \ Alan Hope

More counterfeit goods for sale on social media

andy furniereMore articles by andy \ flanderstoday.eu

© Courtesy sstaffs.gov.uk

Following up on its plane decorated with an image of Tintin, Brussels Airlines is now planning to launch a customised aircraft featuring a refer-ence to the work of the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. The new plane features the image from the 1966 work “The Promise”, a silhouette of a dove filled in with a cloudy blue sky –

an image that features in several earlier works. The dove is placed next to the Brussels Airlines logo on the tail of the plane. The image used to be the logo of Sabena, the Belgian national airline that went bankrupt in 2001. Sabena at one point owned the painting and used the dove on table-ware and other on-board items, as well as on the

wing-tips of its aircraft. “We’re going to take Magritte into the skies,” a spokesperson for Brus-sels Airlines. The choice of Magritte was not a throw-back to that past, he said, but a sign of the airline’s “Belgitude”. “We want to position ourselves as a Belgian company.” Brus-sels Airlines is now a part of the German Lufthansa group. \ AH

Brussels Airlines to launch Magritte aircraft

february 24, 2016

\ 3

Face oF Flanders

Urbain Vermeulen, one of the country’s leading experts on the Arabic language and Islam, has died at the age of 76. Vermeulen taught at both the universities of Ghent and Leuven. Vermeulen was born in Lede, East Flanders in 1940, and moved to Ghent to study history. He grad-uated from Ghent University in 1962 but carried on accumulat-

ing degrees – in archiving, law, history and Eastern languages. In 1969, he was awarded a doctor-ate in contemporary history with a thesis on the Belgian bourgeois press. His academic pursuits were rather rarified, but students found his lessons entertaining and humor-ous. The general public knew him as a commentator on the war in Kuwait in the early 1990s, and later during the growing number of debates on Islam. Vermeulen also appeared as an expert witness in judi-cial proceedings where there was an element of Islamic reli-

gion involved. He was chair of the European Union of Arabists and Islamists and was closely involved in curating for the Dutch-Flemish Institute in Cairo, where he also conducted guided tours. His publications covered topics from the history of Egypt and Syria from the 10th to the 15th centuries to the religious

confrontation involved in the Crusades. He was extremely crit-ical of Islamic radicalism: In the year 2000, he was subject to an investigation by KU Leuven after accusations of insulting remarks about Islam and Muslims. One incident in particular made the headlines: While he was delivering a speech in Leopolds-burg, Limburg, some protestors heckled him and were ejected from the event to applause from the audience. The enquiry found nothing with which to reproach him, and he carried on until 2008, when he retired from both universities.

urbain vermeulen

Here was the news one day last week: The technical archives relating to the construction of the Brussels tunnels have gone missing, probably eaten by mice, according to someone from Brussel Mobiliteit, speak-ing to the new special committee on the renovation and maintenance of the capital’s crumbling tunnels. The story was rapidly picked up by the international media, thanks to Reuters. And who can blame them? How did the mice get at the archives? Well, because they were being stored inside the pillars holding up a flyover in Schaarbeek. The tunnel service’s office in those days was in a hotel where there was no space to store documents. So they were stored inside a bridge. Then moved later, twice.And the mice? It was reported that a plague of rats living inside the structure of the Reyers flyover were at one point released into the neighbouring envi-ronment. (Apparently someone at Brussel Mobiliteit

needs a quick zoology lesson.) The next day, the case became somewhat clearer. The expression “eaten by mice” was only “a figure of speech,” explained Brussel Mobiliteit spokesper-son Inge Paemen. The technical installation near the flyover where the archives were eventually moved was not designed for archive storage, and some of it succumbed to the unsuitable conditions. Another part was destroyed by water damage at the new location in the North Station area. The archives are gone, whatever happened. The mice, however, are off the hook. \ AH

of mice and men oFFside

week in brieFSocialist trade union ABVV has called on its representatives to cut ties with the interim agency Accent Jobs, after it was revealed that the company offered its employees a smartphone and an extra day’s holiday for not voting in elections for union representation. Union approval is needed in works councils if companies want to make use of temporary staff recruited from agencies like Accent.

A train rode for half an hour without a driver between the stations of Landen and Tienen last week, the result of “human error,” according to rail authority NMBS. The driver stepped out of the train, which wasn’t carrying any passen-gers, at the station in Landen. Another driver was able to jump aboard the slow-moving train in Tienen and bring it to a halt. The track and platforms had been cleared, and there was never any danger to passengers, the NMBS said. The driver faces a fine.

The body found recently when divers were raising Antwerp’s Badboot from where it sank last September has been identified as Hodei Egiluz Diaz, a 24-year-old Basque student missing since 2013. The cause of death is not yet clear. The young man went missing after an evening with friends in the centre of Antwerp, during which he was mugged. The muggers were questioned at the time and released. Antwerp mayor Bart De Wever expressed his “profound sympathy” to Egiluz Diaz’s parents.

Small- and medium-sized busi-nesses in Flanders have been targeted by online fraudsters sending out ransomware, the federal police warned. The mails, in perfect Dutch, contain what purports to be an invoice in attach-ment, which if opened activates a virus that locks up the entire network. The company is then told it can only unlock the network on payment of a ransom. Computer specialists advise never to open

an attachment from an unknown source.

The Boudewijn Seapark in Bruges and Ghent University Hospital last week celebrated the 10th anni-versary of their collaboration in the medical rehabilitation of sick children using dolphin therapy. The therapy is organised in two six-week sessions every year, after which the children put on a show with dolphins for their families and classmates. “Ten years of dolphin therapy has taught us there is an enormous value in the rehabilita-tion of each child,” said Ruth Van Der Looven of UZ Gent.

The Flemish ombudsman has bought the internet address www.turteltaks.be to present an objec-tive explanation for the region’s new electricity tax, introduced by energy minister Annemie Turtel-boom. Ombudsman Bart Week-ers told De Standaard that he was concerned by the results found by anyone searching the term “turltel-taks” online. “We need to be seen to be winning the battle on Google,” he said.

A 33-year-old woman who stran-gled her eight-year-old son and buried him in a small public garden in Schaarbeek in Brussels is being held in custody. She was visited by police before the inci-dent after relatives had become concerned about her mental state. Police noted nothing amiss. Neigh-bours later saw her leave the house with only her older son and alerted police. When they arrived, the woman admitted what she had done and led police to the place where the child was buried.

Formula E, the street-racing championship for electric cars, could be on its way to Brussels. It is already planned for London, Paris and Berlin. The licence holder is in discussions with local authori-ties to stage the event on the roads around the Atomium in 2017.

A video showing an hours-long surveillance of the home of the head of the nuclear research labo-ratory in Mol, Antwerp province, has been recovered from the home of a terrorist suspect, police said. The discovery was made during a search of the home of Moham-med Bakkali, who was arrested in November in Brussels in connec-tion with the Paris attacks. Specu-lation that the surveillance signals a planned terrorist attack involv-ing nuclear material is “prema-ture,” police said.

A 58-year-old truck driver suffered a stroke last week on the E40 motorway near Oostkamp in West Flanders. He was able to notify authorities, but his truck drove 17 kilometres on cruise control before he recovered enough to pull over. Three police cars accompa-nied the vehicle, keeping other vehicles out of the way. The lorry hit some roadside bollards, but other-wise nothing was damaged, and no-one was injured. The driver was hospitalised in Bruges.

Federal mobility minister Jacque-line Galant was the subject of a bag-jacking in Brussels last week, when a thief smashed the window of her ministerial car and stole her handbag. Her chauffeur was unable to detain the thief. The minister was not hurt.

The chair of the new Flemish Coun-cil for Animal Welfare, Dirk Lips, has criticised a demand by CD&V to close all mink farms in Flan-ders by 2017. The party argues there is “no public support” for the production of fur. The argu-ment, Lips told Vilt news agency, amounts to saying you should not have what you do not need. “If you extend that logic further, you have to draw the same conclusion about meat and luxury cars,” he said. “The real question is, can such a thing be justified?” Fur farming is already banned in Brussels and Wallonia; there are 17 mink farms in Flan-ders.

© eDM/De standaard

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

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

Editor Lisa BradshawdEPuty Editor Sally TippercontriButing Editor Alan HopesuB Editor Linda A ThompsonagEnda Robyn Boyle, Georgio Valentinoart dirEctor Paul Van Dooren PrEPrEss Mediahuis AdProcontriButors Rebecca Benoot, Bartosz Brzezinski, Derek Blyth, Leo Cendrowicz, Andy Furniere, Lee Gillette, Diana Goodwin, Clodagh Kinsella, Catherine Kosters, Toon Lambrechts, Ian Mundell, Anja Otte, Tom Peeters, Senne Starckx, Christophe Verbiest, Denzil WaltongEnEral managEr Hans De LoorePuBlishEr Mediahuis NV

Editorial addrEssGossetlaan 30 - 1702 Groot-Bijgaarden tel 02 467 23 06 editorial@flanderstoday.eu

suBscriPtionstel 03 560 17 49subscriptions@flanderstoday.euor order online at www.flanderstoday.eu

advErtising 02 467 24 37advertising@flanderstoday.eu

vErantwoordElijKE uitgEvEr Hans De Loore

© Ingimage

His academic pursuits were rarified, but students found his lessons entertaining

\ 4

\ POlITICs

Ingrid Lieten leaves politicsflanders’ former innovation minister to head health-care consortium lifetechvalley

Former innovation minister Ingrid Lieten (SP.A) will step down from her seat in the Flemish parliament from 1 March to become director of LifeTechValley, a joint

venture of research institutes, companies and health-care providers working on innovative projects in the care of the elderly. Lieten (pictured), a former CEO of Flemish public transport authority De Lijn, was a minister and deputy minister-presi-dent in the Flemish government of Kris Peeters, until a coali-tion was formed without the socialists in 2014. She was previ-ously responsible for innovation, the fight against poverty, government investments and the media. “I'm more of a doer,” she said on her announcement. “Work-ing from the opposition is not really my thing. This way I'll be making room for a new, younger person.”LifeTechValley groups together some of the areas for which

Lieten was responsible as a minister and is based in her home province of Limburg. She has always been an outspo-

ken supporter of the province, especially when the Ford Genk factory was forced to close in 2014, with the loss of up to 10,000 jobs, directly and indirectly. LifeTechValley has the goal of creating 50 new companies in the coming five years, as well as 2,000 jobs. People are living for a longer time, “which is a good thing,” said Lieten, “but we need to ensure that everyone is able to grow older while maintaining a good quality of life. We want to make innovation possible within the triangular structure link-ing research centres, companies and the care sector.”Lieten “was the preferred candidate in the selection procedure,” said a spokesperson for LifeTechValley. “She has wide-ranging management experience, including as director-general of De Lijn. Her experience as a Flemish minister allowed her to gain a knowledge of the innovative sector, particularly in health care.” Lieten’s replacement in parliament has yet to be decided.

Flanders’ minister-president, Geert Bour-geois, is to lead a trade mission to Cuba in April, his office has announced. Cuba recently opened to the wider world when the United States lifted an economic embargo on the island that had been in place since the 1960s. “For a long time, Cuba was a closed market, but that seems to be all over now,” Bourgeois said. About 20 Flem-ish companies currently export to Cuba. “It’s not only opening its doors but is confronted with new challenges, and there are opportunities there for Flemish exports. That’s why it’s important not to miss the boat.”The country needs a thorough moderni-sation of its energy and ports industries,

and these are areas where Flemish exper-tise could play a role, he said. “Cuba looks entirely to the outside world for special-ist construction materials and tech-nologies. The same goes for the medi-cal sector, which is suffering a shortage of apparatus and cleanroom technology. These are yet more of the strengths of the Flemish business world.”The delegation will be in Cuba from 3 to 6 April in the vicinity of the capital, Havana, particularly in the Mariel development zone set aside for foreign investors. The Flanders International Technical Agency will organise a seminar on port develop-ment, and the delegation will also visit the Fecons construction fair and the port of Havana (pictured). \ AH

Minister-president Bourgeois to lead trade mission to Cuba

The government of Flanders is organis-ing its first Climate Summit, to take place on 14 April in Mechelen. Some 350 politi-cians, civil servants, entrepreneurs and representatives from unions and NGOs will work together to develop a climate policy, according to the region’s environ-ment minister, Joke Schauvliege.One of the key measures agreed to at last year’s Climate Summit in Paris is that all regions in the world have to develop long-term plans to combat climate change. The Climate Summit in Mechelen is the first step in creating regional policies to be met by 2020 and 2050.The debates will be led by Schauvliege, with support from minister-president Geert Bourgeois. “I want to keep the posi-tive vibe created by the Paris agreement alive,” Schauvliege told De Morgen. “Every-one agrees that extra measures are neces-sary; now we want to develop them with a broad social consensus.”The Climate Summit in April represents the official start of a large-scale discussion among stakeholders. A second summit will be organised in November, Schauvliege said. At the second summit, the govern-ment will present its long-term vision and

a number of concrete new measures.An important aspect of the summits is that every minister is being required to develop goals and measures in their own departments – such as energy, economy and culture – until 2050. The goals will be debated during round table discussions at the summits.“We are using the same approach used in Paris, when voluntary promises brought all involved parties closer together,” explained Schauvliege. “It’s easier to achieve a broad pact through a bottom-up strategy.” \ Andy Furniere

Flanders to hold first climate summit

Federal health minister Maggie De Block (Open VLD) has counselled “extreme caution” in applying a new regulation to the reimbursement of prescription drugs. The regulation makes it possible for a patient suffering from pulmonary fibrosis to be refused an expen-sive treatment because of being a smoker. The new rule was introduced by the state institute for medical insurance Riziv, where it was decided only to reimburse the cost of Ofev, an treatment for pulmonary fibrosis costing up to €30,000 a year, for patients who could prove they had stopped smoking. Pulmonary fibrosis causes the creation of scar tissue in the lungs, leading to a loss of func-tion and reduced oxygen supply to the blood. “People who do not smoke and have never smoked have no idea what it is to stop,” said Patrick Simaels, chair of the Belgian Association of Pulmonary Fibrosis. “Everyone's char-acter is different. That’s why shutting people out of access to a particular medicine on the basis of their lifestyle is a bridge too far.” Instead of depriving patients of medicines, he said, it would make more sense to help them stop while allowing them the treatment. De Block, meanwhile, said the question was “exceptionally difficult and delicate”. “We have to be extremely cautious,” she said. “Other elements also play a role, such as genetic factors. There are also socio-economic factors: What kind of household did some-one grow up in, for example? We need to listen to the experts in the field, and then possi-bly have the rule amended to suit any new elements to be considered.” \ AH

De Block cautions against linking drug reimbursement with lifestyle

A group of hackers calling itself Down-Sec took down the website of the federal nuclear control agency Fanc at the weekend. It was the latest in a series of online attacks on govern-ment sites. The group had earlier closed down sites belonging to the office of the prime minister, the defence ministry, the home affairs ministry’s crisis centre and the senate. The Fanc site, like the others, is now operational again. The group is demanding a “satisfactory reaction” from the government to the case of Madi-son Wintgens, a 14-year-old from Herstal near Liège who killed herself this month after being bullied on social media. According to Miguel De Bruycker, director of the Centre for Cybersecurity, part of the prime minister's office, the group uses a technique known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS). This involves using numerous computers, some of them hijacked for the purpose, to overload a particular address with traffic. The server cannot handle the load and shuts down. The site is unable to respond to requests for pages coming from individual visitors, but, he said, at no point is the computer system infiltrated.On Sunday, the group said it was taking “a short pause”. The federal police’s Computer Crime Unit said it was expecting further attacks on Monday. \ AH

Hackers target nuclear safety agency’s website in latest attack

alan hopeMore articles by alan \ flanderstoday.eu

© Dirk waem/belGa

© Courtesy CD&V

© Gabriel rodriguez/wikimedia Commons

february 24, 2016

\ 5

The essence of architecturea retrospective in antwerp looks back at a varied career in urban planning

continued from page 1

architects could become far better known,” says Kieckens. “It was fantastic and opened up a lot of things.”Kieckens, who founded his firm CKA the same year, won several jobs through the scheme. With Art Interventions at the canal lock complex in Evergem and the market square in Sint-Lievens-Houtem, both in East Flanders, he aimed to enliven public space with interventions by artists like Olafur Eliasson. His design for a crematorium in Zemst, finished just last year, features a family room with a light-filled dome, or oculus, which offset the building’s functional remit with a touch of the sublime.

Something of a Renaissance man, Kieck-ens has managed to hop nimbly from urban planning to visual art, interiors and graphic design. For him, architecture is far more than designing buildings; rather, it’s a total art fusing word and image, theory and history. He often begins projects with an attempt to institute order via grids – a method most visible in the exhibition designs that have been his mainstay. His scheme for the Kortrijk furniture fair Interieur 94 used streets, squares and a grand boulevard to disrupt the dismal, cattle-like circuits of such events. Other layouts have arisen from a love of wordplay inspired, somewhat improbably, by Serge Gainsbourg and the French Deconstruc-tionists.

Kieckens likens these ephemeral displays to a kind of laboratory. “You can talk about space very quickly and immediately have a result,” he says. The flip-side of this speed is that the sets are all demolished, and remain only in photos. “Sometimes I joke that when people ask me what’s the best thing I’ve done, I say, ‘Well, you can’t see it anymore!’”The Van Hover-De Pus house (1990-95) in Baardegem, East Flanders, marked a major

turning point, coming midway through Kieckens’ career, just before his firm tran-sitioned to digital. The house is essentially one big frame for nature. So much so that, according to Kieckens, the owners live unencumbered by furniture and art, which would both be overpowered by the view. At the time, the house was seen as an iconic example of Flemish minimalism, but viewed now it’s clear that more timeless architectural qualities like proportion and

light were as important as respecting the zeitgeist. “The clients were always saying ‘Yes, but’ until I finally got rid of all the superfluous elements,” says Kieckens. “In a project you get more by erasing things than by adding them. In that way minimalism is the wrong term. It’s an essential house.”The house also reflects Kieckens’ love of the Baroque – not the angels and excess, but the blurring of volumes, and the idea of light as a building material in itself. “The light is always the structure of the space. It’s searching for an absent presence,” he says. “As an architect you remain presently absent too. In my case, my works aren’t necessar-ily recognisable as my own, because I don’t have a visual signature.” In 1999, Kieckens was awarded the Flem-ish Cultural Prize for Architecture for his entire body of work. Around that time, his commissions for city buildings grew larger in scale. In the ensuing years, he has created 15 projects for the nascent Céram-ique district in Maastricht and four urban housing blocks with ziggurat-style roofs for the Meyboom scheme near Victor Horta’s historic Magasins Waucquez in Brussels.Looking back now, Kieckens sees certain holes in his career – including seven peri-ods when he had no work at all. “Maastricht took 11 years; Meyboom took seven years. When you don’t have finished projects, nobody knows you anymore.” The economic crisis of 2008 added to the pressure within the building industry, while Kieckens gamely admits that he often chose the wrong open calls – being guided by personal interest more than a canny sense of the market. “I didn’t play the game,” he says. “So in 2014, I had to close my office for financial reasons.” But Kieckens isn’t ready to stop: He plans to continue writing, sketching and collab-orating with upcoming architects on open calls. Last year he donated his papers to the Architecture Archive of the Province of Antwerp, hoping to inspire younger gener-ations. Compared to when Kieckens began, their prospects are bright, he says. “There’s much more money, and there’s a bigger architec-ture culture,” he says. “After 15 years, they have all kinds of stuff in their portfolios. It’s still as difficult as it was, but it’s a better culture.”

\ COVer sTOry

We were hungry because we had no money, but we were also hungry to understand what architecture really was

© niels Donckers

The light-filled reception area at Crematorium Daelhof in Zemst, flemish brabant

For the deSingel retrospective The House. The Mentor. The Archive., Kieckens drew on three recurring themes in his work. At the exhibition’s heart, “the house” is a wedge-shaped abstraction of the Baarde-gem home on a 1:1 scale. Its interior hosts a table setting, giving it the feel of a room, alongside projections of completed build-ings, and an intervention by a rotating series of architects, nodding to Kieckens’ curatorial prowess.Kieckens (pictured, centre, at the open-ing of the exhibition) has taught in numer-ous architectural departments, includ-ing at Artesis Hogeschool and Antwerp University. At the far end of the room, “the mentor” includes some of his exer-

cises drawing on the interaction of word and image, and a series of mystifying yet impressive cubes based on an assignment to imagine the interior of Bruegel’s paint-ing “The Tower of Babel”.

“It’s about the experience and sensation of space, like a Baroque staircase,” Kieck-ens explains. “The task was so well known at the school that some students enrolled there just for that.” Teaching has given him a great deal of satisfaction, he says. “When you instil confidence in students, they go beyond themselves. You also see the changing of the generations.”Kieckens’ archive, meanwhile, runs down both sides of the room. The left-hand wall follows his formative search for architec-ture via drawings and sketches, while the right-hand wall, with its 3D visualisations, covers the digital era of 1996 to 2015, when the search morphed into the production of

actual buildings.As well as closing his office, Kieckens recently retired from teaching, so was seemingly primed for reflection. But the 2,600 hours he spent preparing the show weren’t always easy. “The difficult thing was going back into the archives and re-find-ing myself,” he says. “Sometimes I couldn’t go on: I saw the problems, the hard stuff. But at the same time I wanted to show people things that no one had ever seen.”

sensations oF space

dEsingEl.BE

© Dries luyten

desingelDesguinlei 25, Antwerp

until 5 june

\ 6

Dredging company Deme, based in Zwijndrecht, Antwerp province, is part of the consortium selected to carry out the development of Blue Gate Antwerp, a business park to be located on the heavily polluted site of the former Petroleum Zuid. The other partners in the Blue O’pen group are Mechelen’s Bopro management and consul-tancy group and Dredging International, another division of Deme. The site lies close to the Scheldt to the south of Antwerp and, once cleaned, will become a 63-hectare site for companies working in produc-tion, logistics and research and development. The consortium will be responsible for de-pollut-ing the site then maintaining it. The total cost of Blue Gate Antwerp is estimated at €58 million; the government of Flanders is providing a subsidy of €24 million. Clean-up alone will cost some €22 million, but signing tenants to the site is expected to bring in

€47 million. The initial step in finding customers for the site will be taken this month at the Mipim real estate trade fair in Cannes. That job will be the responsibility of Bopro, a property consultancy; public sector partners AG Vespa and Business & Innovatie, representing the city of Antwerp; and the government’s PMV and Waterways and Sea Canal agency. The group estimates 2030 as a deadline for the site becoming operational. \ AH

Deme awarded clean-up contract for Blue Gate Antwerp

\ busIness

Catering Java foodserviceThe restaurant food and appliances distributor, based in Rotselaar, Flemish Brabant, has been acquired by the Dutch Sligro whole-saler. The move will allow the family-owned affiliate Java Coffee to strengthen its distribution activities in hotels and businesses.

energy GeThe US-based conglomerate has won the contract to build the €300 million biomass power station in the port of Ghent. The 215-megawatt unit is expected to come on stream in 2019.

energy korysThe investment vehicle of the Halle-based discount super-market Colruyt has acquired a stake in the Borawind group, operator of eight wind farms in Spain in part-nership with the local Cefiro. Korys already has stakes in several wind energy groups, including Parkwind, the Leuven-based offshore win farm operator, and Eurowatt, with activities in France and Poland.

Hotels easyHotelThe hotel chain, affiliated to the Easyjet low-cost airline, plans to open a 107-room hotel in central Brussels in early 2017.

recycling IndaverThe waste management affil-iate of Antwerp logistics giant Katoen Natie is invest-ing €800 million to build up to 10 recycling units through-out Europe to handle over one million tonnes of plastic waste a year. The first unit is expected to come on stream in 2020 in the Antwerp port area.

Telecoms TelenetThe cable and telecoms oper-ator is transferring its head-quarters from Mechelen to Brussels, following its recent acquisition of Base, the country’s third larg-est mobile communications provider.

Textiles bekaert TextilesThe producer of mattress textiles and bed cover mate-rials, based in Waregem, West Flanders, and owned by the German Haniel group, is acquiring the Deslee- Clama company, headquar-tered in Zonnebeke, also in West Flanders. The move will make Bekaert one of the world leaders in the field with units in 19 countries, includ-ing China and Australia.

week in business Mechelen in Financial Times’

Top 10 Cities of the Futureflanders and Brussels figure heavily in the list for where to invest

The Financial Times (FT) Top 10 list of Micro European Cities of the Future puts Mechelen at number nine, the only city

in the Benelux to feature on the list. On the list of the overall top 25 European Regions of the Future, meanwhile, Flanders comes in at 24, while number eight for Small European Regions is the Brussels-Capital Region.The lists of regions and major, large, small and micro cities is compiled every two years to assess cities’ and regions’ potential for inward investments. It includes Mechelen this year because of, among other features, the pres-ence of major companies such as Hewlett-Pack-ard, LiveNation and Telenet. (Telenet, howver, recently announced that it plans to move its headquarters to Brussels.)Mechelen also made the FT’s lists of micro cities with the most economic potential and the best connectivity. The city, the report said, can call on

an impressive pool of talent composed of grad-uates of universities and colleges in Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent and offers free wi-fi to resi-dents, companies and visitors. The report also mentions the city’s intelligent LED street lighting and the digitalisation of city administration and services. Mechelen mayor Bart Somers said the listing was a recognition

of recent policy changes. “This means that our city is making itself more emphatically heard on the international scene as the perfect loca-tion of the future for national and international investors.” The Brussels-Capital Region, meanwhile, came in seventh on the FT’s list of Major European Cities of the Future for connectivity, while Antwerp is number eight on the Large European Cities list for economic potential. Ghent made it to number nine of Small European Cities FDI strategy ( foreign direct investment). These achievements pushed Flanders on to two of the FT’s future cities lists: Number eight for connectivity in Large European Regions and number 24 in the overall European Regions of the Future. Brussels-City is listed at number seven for connectivity on Major European Cities, while the region is number eight overall for Small European Regions.

alan hopeMore articles by alan \ flanderstoday.eu

Some 5,000 representatives from a wide range of industrial sectors gathered in Brussels last week to protest at what they claim is dump-ing on the European market of industrial prod-ucts by the Chinese. Exceptionally, the demon-stration saw unions and employers protesting together. In European law, dumping is the term used when a trading partner from outside the EU is found to be selling goods or services at an unreasonably low price, a practice intended to compete unfairly with European businesses and obtain market share. Dumping is against EU law, and the European Commission can take action by applying a tariff to bring the price of the dumped goods up to a competitive level. Steel is one of the most serious cases of Chinese dumping, but other sectors are also affected. “It wasn’t hard to get together all of these people – workers and employers – from about 30 sectors in 20 countries,” said Geert Van Poelvoorde, the Flemish head of the steel industry federation

Eurofer. “We’ve in favour of free trade, but it has to be fair trade.”Industry in Europe fears that the EU is on the brink of designating China as a market econ-omy, which would make it impossible to combat dumping. “If Europe decides to do that, then it’s all over for the anti-dumping regulation, and it’s all over for industry in Europe,” Van Poelvoorde said. The steel sector in Europe employs 300,000 people directly, and three times as many indi-rectly. “According to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, that designation could threaten 3.5 million jobs in Europe and cut €228 billion from European GDP,” said Milan Nitzschke, spokesperson for the umbrella organisation Aegis Europe, which represents a wide range of sectors. The demonstration caused some traffic disrup-tion, with police advising motorists to switch to public transport. At the time of the march, city-bound tunnels in the area were closed. \ AH

Industry protests against dumping of Chinese products on European market

The government of Flanders has permit-ted Genk-based logistics company H Essers to extend its activities and its terrain, despite opposition from conser-vation organisations. The extension involves the felling of a local forest, and Essers must plant almost 22 hectares of woods elsewhere as compensation. The permit allows Essers to extend its pharmaceuticals site in Genk with the addition of 70,000 square metres of ware-housing. The extension will create 400 jobs but will mean the loss of 12 hectares of what was previously designated natu-ral land, including an evergreen forest. Essers said it was satisfied with the government’s decision and admitted there had not been sufficiently transpar-ent communication in recent months. The company invited the city of Genk to put together a monitoring group, includ-ing nature groups, to follow the work as it is carried out. Essers now plans to plant 13.2 hectares of oak birch forest in Opglabbeek, one hectare of grassland in Zonhoven and a 7.5-hectare extension of the De Maten nature reserve. Opposition party Groen says the grant of the permit is “an appall-ingly bad decision. Bad for nature in Limburg, bad for the Limburg economy and bad for justice”. “There are 1,000 hectares of indus-trial terrain available at the site, yet the government opts for deforestation,” said nature organisations Natuurpunt, Bos+ and BBL in a joint statement. “This deci-sion tramples all over the rules and previ-ous agreements. Ironically, the extension is taking place on the spot where Essers should have taken compensatory meas-ures at the time of their last extension. That never happened.” \ AH

Environmental groups protest felling of forest for company expansion

Hotel Mercure Vé in Mechelen, one of the most technologically advanced small cities in the world

© Courtesy omgeving.be

The blue Gate project will include a business park and green space

february 24, 2016

\ 7

As of the end of last year, Flanders is home to one of 15 United Nations training centres that spread the organisation’s sustainable

development message around the world. This year, Cifal Flanders will hold events in the city halls of Flanders’ five provincial capitals to convince local lawmakers, entrepreneurs and civil society groups of the importance of the UN’s vision of sustainability. That vision has been trans-lated into 17 Global Goals, also known as Sustain-able Development Goals.At the beginning of this month, the UN flag was raised at Antwerp’s city hall for Cifal Flanders’ first UN City Hall Talk – a seminar on the chal-lenges of realising the Global Goals. It was a logi-cal choice to host the event in Antwerp since Cifal Flanders was born from the Antwerp ITCCO train-ing centre, which has worked to convince business leaders, policymakers and civil society of the need for sustainable action since 2012. The next stop on the city hall talk tour is Ghent.The talks are held to present the Global Goals through which the UN wants to create a better world by 2030. The Global Goals are best thought of as a hands-on guide to promoting sustainable development, with concrete calls to action for local leaders.The goals include ending poverty, ensuring sustainable consumption and making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. Each goal is split up into concrete targets, such as halv-ing per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer level by 2030.The UN lecture series aims to spell out why getting behind the sustainable agenda is good for busi-ness. “A great deal of innovative products and services will be necessary to achieve the goals,” says Peter Wollaert, managing director of Cifal Flanders. He adds that one of the main goals is to build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation.During the talks, Cifal highlights local projects that set a good example. The Antwerp audience was, for instance, introduced to the port of Antwerp’s sustainable strategies and the StadsLab2050 initi-ative – a think-tank that gathers citizens’ ideas. Under the banner of “smart sustainability”, the talks also emphasise the importance of digital technology. “Apps and digital platforms boost social entrepreneurship initiatives like car-shar-ing services,” Wollaert explains. “But ICT admin-istrators also have to become more aware of, for

example, the environmental impact of computer servers.” The City of Things project, which is turning Antwerp into a real-life lab for intelligent digital products and services, offers another example of a local, smart sustainability initiative.Cifal Flanders plans to close its region-wide tour with an event in the Flemish parliament in Octo-ber. “We want to put the Global Goals on the agenda of electoral campaigns for the municipal elections of 2018, and the elections at the regional and federal level in 2019,” says Wollaert. But Cifal Flanders’ influence reaches beyond the region. At the international level, the centre provides the region with a platform to put local innovative initiatives in the spotlight during UN meetings. This July, it will showcase the region’s sustainability efforts at an event in Flanders House in New York, which represents the region’s interests in the US.Several good initiatives are currently under-way in Flanders, but there is also a lot of room for improvement, as was illustrated by a recent German study that analysed the extent to which the world’s developed nations are meeting the Global Goals. Out of the 34 OECD countries, Belgium is the eighth-best at achieving the Global Goals bench-

marks. With gender equality in particular, the country has an excellent record, thanks to a rela-tively small pay gap and a considerable number of female lawmakers in the federal parliament. The study also noted lawmakers’ efforts to tackle poverty and inequality, which have resulted in a relatively small income gap between the rich and poor.However, the researchers also noted that Belgium is the OECD country with the worst air pollu-tion, and it ranks among the 10 countries with the worst access to affordable, sustainable energy. The researchers also pointed out that the sustainabil-ity of Belgian water resources is in serious jeop-ardy and that the agricultural sector is not taking sufficient action to prevent environmental degra-dation.To better address these areas, Wollaert suggests that the government establish a task force to co-ordinate all legislative action related to the Global Goals across different policy areas. “We need an interdisciplinary dynamic,” he says.If all this has got you inspired to spring into action, but you don’t know where to start, the UN has a practical “Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving the World” for you. The guide offers tips like “donate what you don’t use”, “report online bullies” and “take short showers”.

Know your impactcifal flanders talks un sustainable goals to leaders across the region

iMinds and imec to mergeFlanders’ digital research institute iMinds in Ghent and Leuven-based nanotechnol-ogy research centre imec are merging. By the end of the year, they will form a single world-class research centre for the digital economy. The boards of directors of both institutions have approved the intention to merge, and this will later be converted into an actual merger. IMinds will continue operating from Ghent as a business unit of imec. The merger will combine the technological expertise of 2,500 imec researchers with the digital knowhow of about 1,000 iMinds researchers. “We are also uniting these 3,500 top researchers with an ecosys-tem of Flemish companies and start-ups,” said iMinds CEO Danny Goderis.

seagrass helps fight climate changeAn international team of scien-tists, led by professor Yves Van de Peer of Ghent Univer-sity and Flemish life sciences research institute VIB, has deciphered the genome, or DNA code, of seagrass. The discovery provides an insight into how ecosystems can adapt to climate change. Seagrasses evolved from land plants to organisms living in seawater and now thrive in shallow coastal waters. During its evolution, seagrass lost certain genes that are essen-tial for land plants but devel-oped new functions indispen-sable for survival in the salty and wet tidal zone. Decipher-ing its DNA code can advance ecological studies on how marine ecosystems in general might adapt to global warm-ing.

spin-off makes radiation-resistant electronics A Flemish start-up has devel-oped an advanced technology with which electronic devices can keep functioning under exceptionally high radiation, such as in space or in a nuclear environment. Magics Instru-ments in Mol, Antwerp prov-ince, is a spin-off of the Univer-sity of Leuven and the Study Centre for Nuclear Energy. Exposure to radiation reduces the lifespan and reliability of electronics. Magics Instru-ments has created microchips that keep functioning in high radiation environments 1,000 times longer than the best technology currently availa-ble. The chips offer new possi-bilities for use during space missions and in the nuclear sector. \ AF

week in innovation

\ InnOVaTIOn

What alternative method are you developing exactly?We reprogramme human skin stem cells into liver cells, which can be used to test the poten-tial side effects of pharmaceutical substances. Certain drugs, like the pain killer paracetamol, have harm-ful effects on the liver when taken in excessive quantities. The safety of pharmaceutical substances is usually verified via tests on rodents and dogs, but we want to provide an alternative in vitro method for which no animals are needed and which additionally produces more relevant results for people.

Why can’t you use liver cells instead of converted skin cells?Because there are not even enough donor livers for transplantations, let alone for research. We use cells from circumcised foreskins specif-ically because this type of skin is so thin that it is practical to work with.

When will your technique be ready for general use?We estimate in about five years. We currently use culture plates in the lab but are working hard to develop a lab-on-a-chip – a kind of miniature laboratory. With

these devices, created through 3D-nanoprinting, it will be possi-ble to carry out the same tests with only a fraction of the cells needed now. This would make tests much cheaper and enable commercial-isation since labs-on-a-chip can

be mass-produced. We are work-ing together with B-Phot, the VUB photonics team specialised in light technology.

How will you use the subsidy you have received?We hired a PhD student, but €30,000 is only enough to finance her research for one year, and a PhD normally requires four years. So I hope to get additional fund-ing. Thankfully, we recently also received a donation from a citizen, Mireille Aerens, which allowed us to establish a VUB chair that I lead. We are trying to get more funding from the Belgian and European governments but are also increas-ingly examining opportunities to collaborate with companies. \ Interview by AF

Q&a

cifal-flandErs.org

Vera Rogiers and her research team at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) are developing a technique to test new drugs for their potential negative effects without resorting to the use of test animals. Rogiers recently received €30,000 in federal funding.

© stefan Dewickere

“smart sustainability”: Cifal flanders director Peter wollaert

andy furniereMore articles by andy \ flanderstoday.eu

Sign up now for ourdaily and weeklynewsletters with localheadlines, events andfeatures, tailor-made forexpats in Belgium

Subscribe for free atwww.thebulletin.be

Your dailY news

february 24, 2016

\ 9

Smart thinkingdesign and engineering students team up, with surprising results

funding to take refugee kids to schoolThe governments of Flanders and Belgium are funding the transport of refugee children between the reception centres where they live and pre-school and primary school. Jour-neys of less than 4km will be covered by the federal govern-ment, with longer distances paid for by the Flemish govern-ment. There will be a custom-ised approach for each centre, based on bikes, existing bus lines and collective bus trans-port. The Agency for Educa-tion Services, schools, public transport authority De Lijn, the federal agency supporting asylum-seekers, the Red Cross and local governments will work together to streamline the service, with the govern-ment of Flanders contributing €300,000 in subsidies to the service for 2016.

university colleges to protest subsidiesFlanders’ university colleges are planning actions against a perceived lack of opera-tional subsidies. The Univer-sity Colleges Council (Vlhora) was due to make an official announcement on Monday at a congress in the Flemish parliament. Vlhora first wants to arrange meetings with poli-ticians, after which it will launch an action campaign, with a strike, it said, as a last resort. University colleges provide education to 117,000 students in Flanders. In 10 years, the number of students has increased by nearly 33,400, but government funding per student funding has decreased by a quarter. Colleges now receive €5,000 per student, compared to €6,800 in 2008.

Third of primary schools lack Pe facilitiesOne in three primary schools in Flanders has no facili-ties for physical education and only 22% have their own athletics field, according to Flemish education minister Hilde Crevits, responding to a request by member of the Flem-ish parliament Steve Vanden-berghe (SP.A). “This makes it impossible to provide qual-ity PE lessons,” said Vanden-berghe. “Students often have to go to sports accommoda-tion outside school, which costs time that could be spent on PE.” A quarter of Flan-ders’ primary schools cannot provide PE that meets the government’s quality stand-ards. According to Vanden-berghe, one of the reasons is that primary schools are not obliged to have a specialised PE teacher. \ Andy Furniere

week in education

\ eDuCaTIOn

Julie Devlieghere had always had a keen interest in the First World War, but it was her thesis supervi-sor who suggested she look deeper into the wave of thefts that swept Flanders during the Great War. She was quickly game.Both Devlieghere (pictured) and Antoon Vrints, a professor at Ghent University (UGent) were eager to find out if what the French philos-opher Gabriel Tarde wrote in 1886 was true: Rien de plus immoralisant que la Guerre. Or, nothing breeds immorality like war.After six months of digging in the state archives in Beveren, East Flanders, where all the former files of the county court of Mechelen are kept, Devlieghere discovered that the profile of the perpetrators changed during the war. Judges’ and plaintiffs’ level of tolerance also shifted, but not in the same direction.“Before the war, mainly unmar-ried men committed thefts, often stealing money and jewellery,” says Devlieghere, 22. “During the war, it was not just single men, but also

people with kids, even women. In most cases, they weren’t stealing cash or jewels, but food to support their families.”When charged, she continues, “they didn’t show much regret, and judges were mild – to the disappointment of victims, often farmers who demanded a severe response”.So stealing potatoes or vegeta-bles from farmers’ fields – known as moeskopperij – became more or less accepted – at least if it was clear you were going hungry. “In an attempt to deal with the plague of thefts, judges prosecuted perpetrators, even of moeskop-perij, which hardly ever happened before the war. But the punish-ments were often limited to a very short sentence in prison or, more often, just a fine. And sometimes, in the most painful situations, the fine was dropped.”Devlieghere adds that the acts of theft were seldom accompa-nied by violence. “Often they were just a strategy for survival, as they are in periods of economic

crisis,” she explains. “I read state-ments in which farmers said they were confronted with more than 20 potato thieves at once. So it is obvious, their tolerance of the situ-ation adjusted. Some would watch their fields at night, or start a farm patrol, but those were easy to get around.”Devlieghere came to this conclu-sion by comparing all the thieves

sentenced by the county of Mechelen sentenced between 1912 and 1917. She compiled a database with the information she found in court books and read all the state-ments offenders and victims gave to the police or in court. “The fear among the upper class that the poor would lose their moral compass during wartime, like Tarde suggested, was exagger-ated,” Devlieghere says. “But the limits of what was permitted and tolerated did shift.”Devlieghere’s thesis not only capped her four-year degree programme in history, it also won her the Scrip-tieprijs 100 Jaar Groote Oorlog (Thesis Prize Great War Centen-nial). Awarded by Scriptie vzw and Flanders’ Department of Foreign Affairs, it is worth €1,000. Devlieghere, meanwhile, has moved on to her next project. She is pursuing a Master’s in journal-ism at the Free University of Brus-sels (VUB), where she is working on another thesis, this time about how refugees are represented by the media. \ Tom Peeters

As part of a Ghent University (UGent) course that aims to bring together tomorrow’s designers with tomorrow’s

engineers, three students have designed a pair of headphones that selects and plays music based on users’ brain activity.Headphones with three tentacles that jut out from both sides, Emuse (pictured) looks like a futuristic space helmet. The tentacles read and interpret the wearer’s brainwaves to determine their state of mind and then selects music that complements it.“Our assignment was to do something with a neuro headset that measures brain activity and thereby controls a certain object,” explains Francis Foubert, a student in industrial design who developed the headphones together with fellow students Alicia Teerlinck and Kenny Nuyten. “In our brainstorm-ing sessions, we came up with the idea to do something with music and emotions.”They designed the headphones to measure brain activity and compare the brain’s left and right halves. That informa-tion is then placed on a scale from positive to negative values, and from active to passive. Based on that information, Emuse selects music from the user’s music library. The problem, the students realised, was that users may not neces-sarily want to hear sad music when they’re feeling blue. “That’s why Emuse also remem-bers what you skip in a certain mood,” says Foubert. “It’s

a learning system that gets to know you better and better.” Given the success of digital musical services like Spotify that allow users to curate their own play-lists and libraries, a gadget like this seems likely to attract consumer interest. Yet Emuse won’t be hitting stores any time soon, says Foubert. “We have been working on the system for three months. What we have now is a working proto-type. But it is still far from finished.”Students in UGent’s mechatronic product design course have also created other mind-boggling devices. How about the desk lamp that follows users’ movements for optimal lighting? Or the bicycle light that reacts to traffic, or the Whack-A-Mouse, which dares cats to hit a toy mouse that occasionally pokes its head out.

Another, more serious, design is Current Stories, created

for the Dr Guislain Museum in Ghent.

Through speak-ing and listening

houseplants, this installation offers visitors the opportu-nity to share

their impres-sions after a

visit to one of the museum’s

psychiatrically inspired exhibi-

tions. The plants are suspended from the ceiling and are equipped

with sensors that record visitors’ impressions

and narrate them to other visitors.

The system is activated when you touch the plants.The course from which all these designs emerged, Mechatronic Product Design and Embedded Prototyping, is an interdisciplinary programme that pairs design and electronic engineering students. The aim is to integrate electronics into prod-uct design, explains Jelle Saldien, one of the professors who teaches the course. “We want to design smart products that enable interaction, something that will be increasingly important in the future.”

The course’s strength is its cross-discipline approach, he says, which makes it possible to not only conceptualise potential products but also to actually create them. According to Saldien, the course is organised very intuitively. “We aim to create an open environment for students where they are free to experiment – a kind of sandbox culture where they can be crea-tive and are allowed to fail,” he says. “They are given deliberately vague assignments – some by us teachers, some by businesses.” The students’ assignments can range from making time more tangible to developing an intelligent application for bicycles. “We see that this approach works; each year the students achieve particularly strong results.”

Student uncovers hidden story behind wave of historical thefts scriPtiEPrijs.BE

© kevin faingnaert

toon lambrechtsMore articles by Toon \ flanderstoday.eu

Smart products that enable interaction will be increasingly important in the future

© Courtesy uGent

Sign up now for ourdaily and weeklynewsletters with localheadlines, events andfeatures, tailor-made forexpats in Belgium

Subscribe for free atwww.thebulletin.be

Your dailY news

\ 10

\ lIVInG

Shining a lightfaro gets refugees and the disadvantaged involved in cultural heritage

Faro, which means “lighthouse” in several languages, is indeed

providing a guiding light to vulnerable groups of people who participate in its new project. The Flemish government’s agency for the support of local heritage is funding cultural initiatives in 12 organisations that work with vulnerable groups.With financial support from the Leuven-based co-operative Cera, Faro is inviting migrants, the poor and youth from disadvantaged areas to express themselves and, in that way, become more inte-grated in society. The selected organisations have been asked to work in co-opera-tion with a cultural organisation and propose projects that engage participants in an artistic activity. The projects will be presented as part of the 16th edition of Erfgoed-dag (Heritage Day) in April, which will be focused around the theme of rituals.Faro aims to offer participants in the cultural project an active role so that, rather than remain passive visitors, they become the inven-tors, designers and promoters of a project. Art knows no bounda-ries and in fact challenges them, so it is an ideal means of creating a bridge between different social groups, according to the organi-sation. The Limburgs Platform voor Vluchtelingen (Limburg Platform for Refugees) is one of the organ-isations that secured funding, and it collaborated with the non-profit Vluchtelingen Vlaanderen (Flemish Refugee Action) for their Coffugee initiative, a mash-up of “coffee” and “refugee”. Coffugee sees refugees welcom-ing visitors to museums and exhi-bitions with a cup of coffee, using

this simple, hospitable gesture in a public setting to stimulate infor-mal dialogue. Refugees will receive training in storytelling skills so they can share their unique expe-riences with their new communi-ties.“The funds we received have given us the opportunity to work on a more inclusive society,” explains Karen Wyckmans from Flem-ish Refugee Action. “The refugees have fascinating stories, which can change our way of thinking about them. We believe that inter-action and encounters with the local community are important. Sometimes it takes a lot of cour-age to start a conversation with Flemish people, who in turn expe-rience many barriers themselves, not always daring or finding the opportunity to form relationships with refugees.”Apart from being a great way of breaking the ice between differ-

ent communities, such initia-tives allow disadvantaged people to gain self-worth in often trying situations. “The development of positive self-esteem is crucial,” says Wyckmans, pointing out that poverty often results in a lack of cultural participation. “Asylum-seekers and refugees encounter many obstacles to attending a cultural activity,” she continues. “With this project, we want to provide them with access to culture, and we believe that the enthusiasm they generate will encourage their family and social network to attend cultural events as well.”Another of the selected organisa-tions is The Music Club, a Turk-ish music and folklore associa-tion in Beringen, Limburg. The club collaborated with the Unie van Turkse Verenigingen (Union of Turkish Organisations) on From Cradle to Death: Turkish Musical

Rituals. In this show, talented youngsters from migrant neighbourhoods in Limburg towns will sing, dance and play traditional instruments – such as the baglama stringed instrument – and depict Turkish rituals at different stages of life. “This gives these youngsters more opportunities to develop their talents and provides a positive platform for their Turkish iden-tity,” says Kahraman Yücel of the Music Club, “but it also gets them to venture outside of their own community and the area they are familiar with.”The Faro project certainly implies a social and perhaps more modern role for art and culture as a means of starting a dialogue and creat-ing links through a universal language. “Everyone has the right to take part in and contribute to culture,” says Tine Vandezand, Heritage Day co-ordinator at Faro.

Toast. For Brits and Americans, it’s an integral part of a full breakfast. For Belgians and the French, it’s the foundation of that lunchtime snack, croque monsieur. But who said toast could be part of a gourmet experience? Leaving aside its role in a serving of foie gras or smoked salmon, toast only recently entered the gourmet sphere thanks to Brooklyn hipsters, who saw in toasted bread the perfect basis for high-end sandwiches. Chef Arno (like the Florentine river, he has only one name) from the deli and caterer Point Albert in the Brussels municipality of Elsene became inspired. He was tasked with providing food to patrons of the cinema where Le Toast is located – Cinéma des Galéries, an Art Deco palace in the Sint-Hubertus galleries. The croque seemed to fit the bill, but it could only do justice to the palatial surroundings if it put its best bib and tucker on.

The result is a bit pricey – €8 for a simple croque – but it’s undoubtedly the best you’ll taste outside of a 3.00, post-pub arrangement knocked up in your own kitchen (those are always the best). Specially conceived by Brussels baker Yves Guns, the bread is sliced ultrafine. The cheese is first-class gruyere; the ham is braised in-house at Point

Albert. My sandwich is barely held together by the bread, like a cluster of warm love encased inside a steamy cloud. There’s also a side of homemade ketchup that would be worth the price of entry on its own, and the croque is served with a salad. And with that, anyone’s lunchtime is complete. Le Toast has only just opened, right there in the cinema foyer. The founders plan to have a terrace out on the gallery. The menu will also be further developed, with the addition of a lobster roll and croques with bresaola and rocket, or butternut squash carpaccio with hazelnut oil. There’s already a salad of pearl pasta, kohlrabi, carrot and butternut available if the croque doesn’t fill you. There’s even a dessert on the way: how about a croque with roasted banana and home-made chocolate spread? Yes, I thought so. \ Alan Hope

bitenew Brussels eatery offers gourmet toast in posh setting

krakelingen and Tonnekensbrand This ancient folk festival in Geraardsbergen encompasses three main events: a proces-sion with hundreds of partic-ipants depicting the history of the city, the “krakelingen throw”, wherein traditional round bread rolls are thrown to the crowd, and a huge bonfire to signal the arrival of spring. 28 February, from 15.00, Geraardsbergen city centre; free

\ geraardsbergen.be

author’s walk in MolenbeekLocal author Hans Vandecan-delaere has written the defin-itive guide to the history and current state of affairs in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek. He’ll be your guide for a tour of this fasci-nating part of Brussels and will sign copies of his book afterwards. (in Dutch) Reser-vations required. 27 February, 14.00-17.30 start at the Vlaam-sepoort; €10

\ tinyurl.com/authorwalk

flanders Horse expoThe biggest horse show in the Benelux has something for everyone: show jumping competition, Belgian draft horses, demonstrations, clin-ics, pony rides and of course everything the horse lover needs – including horses for sale. 26-28 February, Flanders Expo, Maaltekouter 1, Ghent; €18

\ flanders-horse-expo.be

kids’ Torchlight TourEighteenth annual night-time tour for kids aged 6 to 12 in the Laarbeekbos, the big forest north of Brussels. Younger kids can participate in a sepa-rate indoor activity. Be sure to dress warmly and bring a torch. A campfire and hot cocoa follow the walk. Reser-vations required only for the indoor activity. 27 February, from 18.45; Jeugdhuis Tonge-luk, Bosstraat 10, Ganshoren; free (donations accepted)

\ kwbganshoren.be

Cycling and Hiking fairStart planning now for warmer weather by trying out a new bike, booking a walking holiday, attending a lecture about how to use a GPS while cycling, connecting with walking and cycling experts or learning about adventure travel. 27-28 February, 10.00-17.00, Antwerp Expo, Jan Van Rijswijcklaan 191, Antwerp; €9.50

\ fietsenwandelbeurs.be

week in activities

PointalBErt.com

© Courtesy le Toast

© Courtesy faro

a recent Heritage Day info session at the yunus emre mosque in Genk, limburg

miriam galea More articles by Miriam \ flanderstoday.eu

faronEt.BE

february 24, 2016

\ 11

A castration and a cautionary taleour mysterious flanders series goes in search of the region’s hidden past

Het Steen on the bank of the river Scheldt in Antwerp is a popular tourist destination. The building was

part of a larger castle complex, most of which was demolished in 1880. Today, Het Steen still offers a beautiful view over the river. Few visitors, though, will look up as they enter to see a heavily weathered relief above the gate.The stone image, called Semini, has a particu-larly interesting story to tell. Once the statue had a huge phallus, and he was worshiped as a fertility symbol. Young women from Antwerp came to gaze up at him, hoping to conceive. The pagan custom – and of course the large phallus – were a thorn in the side of the

church. In 1587, the Jesuits, fed up with this immoral display, cut off Semini’s masculinity.Another story says it wasn’t the Jesuits but the women of Antwerp who castrated the little figure, grinding the stone phallus to make fertility potions. However, very few historical traces were left behind to back up either story. Semini has become part of Antwerp folklore, living on in songs and proverbs, and in 1985 the fertility cult was restored by the Antwerp Semini Association. On the first Saturday of spring, they bake “fertility cakes” and distrib-ute them to newly married couples.But where did this curious figure really come from? There are two contradictory explana-tions. During the Renaissance, historians thought the statue represented the Roman fertility god Priapus. At the time it was customary to trace back everything to classi-cal antiquity. Later, during the Romantic era of the 19th century, a very different explanation surfaced. Semini was not a Roman, but a Celtic or Norse fertility statue, meaning the fertility cult would have pre-Christian origins.Neither of the theories has any serious grounds, though. The stories about the relief ’s origin are what historians call invented tradi-tions: clarifications about things that are

sought in the past, but that actually say more about the era in which they’re formulated. During the Renaissance, the Classical period was popular, then came the popularity of the Celtic and Germanic traditions. Invented traditions take on a life of their own in the collective memory and become genu-ine traditions. So Semini lives on in Antwerp, even without his phallus.Also on the banks of the Scheldt, a few kilo-metres away, lies the community of Hemik-sem, famous for its huge abbey. The complex belonged to the Cistercian Order but now serves as an administrative centre.The first stone was laid back in 1243. The

monks brought prosperity to the region and laid the foundations for the brick industry. But the French Revolution led to their downfall. The French invaders in the late 18th century were strongly anti-clerical and pillaged Flan-ders’ churches and abbeys, including the abbey in Hemiksem. In November of 1794, the French were clos-ing in, but the monks were prepared. All their valuables were already packed, ready to flee. The plan was to escape on the Scheldt with three boats full of gold and gems.But that evening saw a violent storm, and the river was turbulent. A sudden gust of wind capsized one of the boats. By chance, the local ferryman was still on duty, and he managed to get a few people on board, includ-ing the abbot, and saved them from drowning. Despite this rescue, the abbot died, and with his last breath, he told the ferryman the story.The ferryman couldn’t forget the treasure at the bottom of the Scheldt. A few days later he decided, at low tide, to go in search of the cases full of gold. Before he could start, the abbot appeared in his dream to warn him of his greed, but the ferryman ignored him. And indeed, he found where the caskets were submerged. He tried to recover them with ropes, but at the last second the burden of

heavy cases dragged him into the water, never to surface again. Later, many fishermen would claim to hear his plaintive cries during stormy weather,

begging to be delivered from the gold that chained him forever to the bottom of the Scheldt. The legend of the Black Ferryman was born.

toon lambrechtsMore articles by Toon \ flanderstoday.eu

Flanders Today has launched an e-book with ideas for how to spend a year’s worth of week-ends. Visit our website to get your free copy of 50 Weekends in Flanders. We’ll also print one of our suggestions every week here, too.

The rolling hills of West Flanders are home to family farms and small firms that produce good meat, chocolates and cheese. There’s no better way to while away a day in the prov-ince than seeking them out.

PASSENDALE CHEESE in PassendaleDairy cows graze in the fields around the village where the battle of Passchendaele was fought in 1917. The milk is used to make deli-cious soft yellow Passendale cheese. You can watch it being produced and taste the final product (pictured) at De Oude Kaasmakerij out in the fields near Tyne Cot cemetery.

\ deoudekaasmakerij.be

LEDOUX CHOCOLATES in LangemarkIt’s easy to drive straight past this chocolate workshop on the road from Ypres to Lange-mark without seeing it. But it’s worth stop-ping to look around the authentic atelier. The young owners specialise in seashells, which they make by hand in special moulds.

\ choc-ledoux.be

VERWENKOFFIE in KemmelMost cafes in Belgium will serve a biscuit with coffee. But they do more than that in the villages of the Westhoek. They often serve a verwenkoffie, literally a coffee to spoil you, which might include a Belgian chocolate, a piece of sponge cake, a bowl of whipped cream and a small glass of advocaat. The old restaurant Casino in Kemmel serves a verwenkoffie that spoils you rotten.

POTJEVLEESCH in DranouterYou come across this traditional dish in small inns close to the French border, like the wood-panelled De Barbier in Dranouter. Literally a “little pot of meat”, potjevleesch is made with chicken, rabbit and veal preserved in jelly. Local people love it, served with a bowl of frites and a beer.

MAZERINETAART in Poperinge“We were already here in 1914”, it says on a sign outside Sansen’s bakery on the main street in Poperinge. Here you can buy a sweet sponge cake called Mazerinetaart after a Cardinal Jules Mazarin, who invented the recipe in 1885. He took sponge cake and soaked it in warm butter and cinnamon sauce to create his sweet, sticky pudding. Gasthuisstraat 36, Poperinge

POPERINGS HOMMELBIER in WatouIt’s called Poperings Homelbier, but it’s brewed in the Van Eecke family brewery in the lovely village of Watou. It’s a subtle, complex beer with a mellow taste of Flem-ish hops. Drink it in one of the cafes on the main square after a cycle ride through the hop fields. \ Derek Blyth

50 weekends in Flanders: A tasting tour of the Westhoek tinyurl.com/50wEEKEnds

© Toon lambrechts

There are many stories put forward as to how semini lost his manhood

One story says it wasn’t the Jesuits but the women of Antwerp who castrated the little statue

FREE ENTRY • Register before March 5 at www.xpats.com/realestate

March 8, 2016ING Head O� ce – Marnix. Entrance via Rue de Trône, 1 – 1000 Brussels(nearest subway station: Trône)

• Registrations from 17h30 • Seminar starts at 18h00 sharp

The Bulletin and ING Belgium invite you to a seminar on

PROPERTYTODAY

• Wout Vermeeren, Director, domoXim Real Estate,“The changing role of the real estate agent”

• Alexis Lemmerling, notary, Berquin, “An update on recent legislative changes”

• Dave Deruytter,Head of Expatriates & non-residents, ING Belgium,“Finance and insure a purchase in Belgium – How about taxation”

Vastgoed - Immo -Real Estate

www.domoXim.be

General Management & Leadership Specific Industries

Finance & Tax

IT Education

Solvay Executive MBA

Marketing & Sales

• Accelerated Management Programme• Executive Master in Management• Executive Programme en Management et

Philosophies

• EMBA Fast Track• EMBA

• IT Management Education• Information Security Management

• Executive Master in Finance• Finance for Non-Financial Managers• Executive Master en Gestion Fiscale

• Executive Programme en Immobilier• Executive Mastère en Management

des Institutions de Santé et de Soins• Executive Master in International

Association Management

• Executive Master in Marketing, in adigital world

• Executive Programme in DigitalCommunication

• Executive Programme in Retail andConsumer Goods Distribution

Registration: coms.solvay.edu/exed-infosessionWhere: 42, avenue Franklin Roosevelt - 1050 Brussels

More info: info@solvay.edu - 02/650 65 94

Whether you’re a professional looking to speed-up your career or a company needing to trainkey-staff in critical business issues, Solvay Brussels School teaches a wide-ranging, ever-evolvingportfolio of postgraduate courses and classes aimed at junior to mid-levels managers. Our cata-logue of trainings is built to reflect the needs of today’s business world: variety of subjects, choicesbetween day classes and evening classes, to-the-point programmes.

SOLVAY EXECUTIVE EDUCATIONCareer Development for Professionals

Special information evening : 8 March 2016 from 18.30

Leadership & Human Developpment

• Gestion de conflits et négociation• Coaching d’équipe• Change Management• Executive Programme en Mindful

Leadership• Thought Leadership for Experts

february 24, 2016

\ 13

\ arTs

The hard edge of abstract artluc tuymans leaves representation behind to curate local abstractions

When The Gap: Abstract art from Belgium ran in London last year, it was something of an oddity: an exhibition of old and new abstract art from Belgium, curated by Luc Tuymans, the country’s most famous living representational artist. Now relocated to M KHA in Antwerp, the show has grown and taken on a harder edge. The idea of looking at Belgian abstract art came from Tuymans himself, even though this is not exactly his territory. “There are paintings of mine that are on the verge of abstraction, but they are always connected to the real or to an object,” he explains. “But I was always a big fan – and I still am – of people like Mondrian, the black paintings of Ad Reinhardt, Robert Ryman, the Seagram paintings of Rothko, and Ellsworth Kelly.”Even so, the Antwerp-based artist did not follow in their footsteps. “It’s not that I have an aversion to abstraction; it’s just not what I do. For me, abstraction is a bit more emotive than representa-tional imagery, which has greater distance and is more detached.”His selection for The Gap covers two generations of Belgian abstract artists, one active in the mid- to late 20th century, the other working now. But a histor-ical survey this exhibition is not. “For that, for example, we would have gone back in time to Jozef Peeters or [Victor] Servranckx at the very beginnings of Belgian abstraction, and we would have had a different show.”He also set aside lyrical abstrac-tion. “It’s not that I don’t like it or undervalue it, but I think it should be shown differently. With these more severe works, we were able to make a link with the newer gener-

ation of contemporary artists.”Despite its severity, the result is a visually stimulating show, the choice of an artist rather than a scholar. “The most inter-esting point for me is that all of these artists work from a differ-ent perception of reality,” says Tuymans. “So you get very indi-vidual positions.” The links that appear between generations indicate convergence more than direct influence. For example, Jef Verheyen’s “Morning” and “Monochrome Blue Morning”, both from the 1960s, find an echo in Pieter Vermeersch’s “Untitled”

from 2015, with both artists striv-ing to capture the effect of light passing through air. Meanwhile, the contemporary grids created by Carla Arocha and Stéphane Schraenen inhabit the same aesthetic space as the white-on-white geometrical abstraction of Walter Leblanc from the 1960s and ’70s. There also seems to be a line between Gaston Bertrand’s paintings and drawings rooted in architectural plans and the faint shapes that emerge from the dark-ness in an installation by Boy & Erik Stappaerts.Other artists featured include Francis Alÿs, Amédée Cortier, Raoul De Keyser, Bernd Lohaus, Guy Mees and Philippe Van Snick

from the older generation, and Gert Robijns and Timothy Segers from the new.While the same artists appear in both versions of The Gap, the works selected for the Antwerp show are often different. In London, the exhibition revolved around “Column” by Arocha and Schrae-nen, a colourful site-specific work that linked two floors of the gallery. This would not work on the single floor of M KHA, and so had to go. Tuymans has also taken advan-tage of the move to draw on M KHA’s collection, improving the selection of work by Bertrand and

Mees, for example, and bringing out bigger pieces by Van Snick and Robijns. He has also secured Verheyen’s “Morning”, a particular favourite, from Antwerp’s Royal Museum of Fine Arts.He thinks this mix of past and present is how an institution like M KHA should be using its collec-tion. “A museum should, of course, position itself within actuality, but it should also work from a memory.”Tuymans insisted on the walls being painted a specific shade of grey, to remove their unevenness and to create a distinct zone for the exhibition, incorporating a space usually considered part of M KHA’s entrance hall. The idea, he

says, is to give the public a sense of tranquillity, and the art the space it needs to be seen properly.“There has been all this talk about the museum being bad, architec-ture-wise, but I don’t see that as an excuse for creating bad shows,” he says. “I think the more mini-mal you go with the building, the better it will actually function.”Tuymans is no stranger to curat-ing exhibitions, and the offers keep coming in. “For me, it is collateral damage, because it is not the real work of painting,” he says. But some offers are just too tempt-ing. Next up is a collection of his own work at the MAS museum in Antwerp in May. “I’ve wanted to do this show for a long time, which is a selection of portraits of people with glasses,” he says. Part of the show will transfer to the National Portrait Gallery in London later in the year.Then in October comes an exhibi-tion on James Ensor at the Royal Academy in London. This will feature some 25 major works by the Ostend artist, many from the exceptional collection held in Antwerp’s Fine Arts Museum. “But we have fantastic material from all the museums in Belgium,” he says.A painting and an etching by Tuymans will also be included, along with a video by Guillaume Bijl that purports to be a lost film of Ensor on the beach at Ostend. There will also be items from the Mask Museum in Binche, to high-light the influence of folklore in Ensor’s work.

suske en wiske drawings earn €95,000 at auctionOriginal black-and-white drawings from the 1977 Suske en Wiske comic strip album De raap van Rubens (Rubens’ Apprentice) brought in €95,000 at the Dutch online auction Catawiki last week. The 69 pages were sold separately and earned some €20,000 more than expected. De raap van Rubens, album number 164 in the Suske en Wiske series – known as Spike and Suzy in English – is considered one of the strip’s classics and is also the longest, at 80 pages. The story follows the eponymous youngsters as they travel back to 17th-century Antwerp to meet Rubens, Antoon Van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens. It was drawn by Paul Geerts, who drew the strip after founder Willy Vandersteen moved on to other projects.

Iron age urns uncovered in antwerpArchaeologists in Antwerp have uncovered cremation urns from the Iron Age under the inner courtyard of the Handelsbeurs, which is being renovated to be re-opened as an events venue after 15 years standing empty. The build-ing was erected in the 19th century, but the site dates back much further, with the layer immediately under the courtyard dating to around 1530. The dig also uncovered brick walls, an oven and clay floors. At a deeper level, the ceremonial urns date back to the ninth century BC.

rihanna moved from werchter to PukkelpopPop and hip-hop star Rihanna has been moved from the 21 July Werchter Boutique show to the opening night of Pukkel-pop in August. As 21 July is National Day, a major police presence is needed in Brus-sels, and Werchter Boutique has been asked to change its date. Organisers have not yet set a new date. Rihanna, who’s bringing along Detroit rapper Big Sean, will now be the headlining act on the opening night of Pukkelpop outside of Hasselt on 17 August. They are the only act so far announced by Pukkelpop this year, which takes place from 17-20 August. Other summer festi-val announcements include Bruce Springsteen headlin-ing Werchter’s TW Classic on 9 July and former Beatle Paul McCartney headlining Rock Werchter on 30 June.

\ pukkelpop.be

week in arts & culture

M HkaLeuvenstraat 32, Antwerp

until 29 may

© M Hka

“utop 3D nr 2" by flemish artist Timothy segers was made especially for The Gap

There’s been all this talk about the museum being bad architecture-wise, but that’s no excuse for creating bad shows

muhKa.BE

ian mundellfollow Ian on Twitter \ @IanMundell

\ 14

\ arTs

Ice breakeryoung novelist’s debut takes flanders’ publishing world by storm

Flemish author Lize Spit has become an overnight literary sensation with her debut novel, which blurs the lines between fiction and autobiography.

When Lize Spit won the Dutch-language writing competition WriteNow!

in 2013, she had publishers fighting over who would get her first novel. In the end, Das Mag, a Dutch publishing company recently established through crowdfunding, snagged her debut, putting both them and the young, talented and already bestselling author on the map.

Spit, 27, wanted to be a writer from an early age and studied screen-writing at the RITCS arts school in Brussels. “I wrote a prose thesis instead of a screenplay,” she says. “I always wanted to write fiction, and I loved the way that movies approach the genre. But I always intended to ultimately write a novel.” Her debut, Het smelt (The Melt), was the result of a year of intensive writing preceded by several years of exploring. “I’ve just been search-ing for my own voice and style for some time,” she says. The story takes place in Boven-meer, a small Flemish town. After 13 years away, Eva returns there,

to a place that both scarred and shaped her. She grew up with Pim and Laurens, the only two boys born in the same year as her. They’re all best friends until puberty hits. During the summer of 2002, Eva is faced not just with the collapse of her family but with unknown cruelty and degradation, forced on her by those she loved. Now, she drives through the streets of Bovenmeer with a large block of ice in her trunk, hoping to get even.Bovenmeer is based on Spit’s hometown, Viersel, in Antwerp province, where she grew up. “I wanted to do something with Vier-

sel; I accumulated so many ideas and observations there, which inspired me to write Het smelt. Pim and Laurens were among my first fictional concoctions. And I find revenge a very interesting theme, so it had to be included.” There are many biographical refer-ences in Het smelt, something the people of Viersel were curi-ous about. “They couldn’t help but compare the novel to reality, which was sometimes different, of course” Spit says. “I thought it was very funny to be confronted with comments like, ‘That house isn’t there’, seeing as the story is completely fictional.”Viersel was just the starting point,

she explains, to which she added elements to make it fit the novel. “That’s not something everyone gets,” she says, “but, on the other hand, people are also proud that their village is featured in a novel. It brings them together.” There are also similarities between Spit (pictured) and her main char-acter, making residents – and read-ers – question the line between fact and fiction.Het smelt is a mix of drama, thriller, dark comedy and coming-of-age,

and the story moves at an aston-ishing pace. “I wanted to write a plot-driven novel, so that read-ers really want to know what’s going to happen,” says Spit. “But I didn’t want to write a thriller per se, because I also wanted it to be beautifully written. Thrillers are usually lacking on a literary level.” Her writing style is fluent, and she has truly mastered the art of passionate and poignant prose at an early age. Despite the empha-sis on the plot, her characters are

also the genuine article. Because it’s a long book – 478 pages – she explains, the character develop-ment was inevitable. “You spend a lot of time with these people, so empathy – with the main charac-ter especially – is inevitable.” Eva is shaped by her family and friends, resulting in the ultimate battle between nature and nurture. “Her family life is quite devastat-ing,” Spit says, “as she doesn’t feel safe with her negligent, alcoholic parents.” This leads her to look to her friends, “where she finds comfort but at the same time is heading down a path of self-destruction. There’s no way out for her.” Eva simply wants to be seen, giving Het smelt a dark and merci-less undertone. A vibrant and well-written novel full of suspense and melancholy, this debut introduces an array of complex, realistic char-acters whose stories linger.

Het smelt ( ) is published in Dutch by Das Mag

Viersprong (Crossroad) • geertrui daem (Polis)Geertrui Daem’s socially aware novels, plays and short stories about families on the brink of crisis have made their mark on Flemish fiction. Viersprong is the tale of four unmarried sisters in the 1960s who own a guesthouse. This respectable busi-ness is a haven for them, until one of them becomes pregnant. It’s a tragicomedy about women trying to hold their own in a man’s world while confronting their desires and dreams. A nostalgic and pleasant enough read.

de zwarte brug (the Black Bridge) • Erik Vlaminck (Vrijdag)

Erik Vlaminck is a master at writing family chronicles depicting the hard-working cornerstones of Flemish society. His latest novel is – as always – filled with regional

dialects, sayings and a healthy dose of social criticism as main character Leopold

struggles with the eradication of his village. Born in 1945 in Lillo on the Scheldt, he is forced to watch as the community disinte-grates while the port of Antwerp expands, swallowing up the canvas of his youth. Filled with nostalgia and regret, he is forced to find his way in an uncertain and ever-changing society.

als je iemand verliest die je niet kan verliezen (if you lose someone You Can’t Lose) • Ish Ait Hamou

Brussels choreographer and So You Think You Can Dance judge Ish Ait Hamou has written a novella for the new TeGek!? campaign, which focuses on adolescent mental health. Sheila is a brilliant young doctor at the peak of her career. One day, fate steps in, and she is transferred to a small-town hospital. On the train, she meets a Palestinian fugitive who reminds

her of her past. Days later, a heavily wounded man is brought to her operating table. A tragic tale about destiny, secrets and coming to terms with oneself.

licht en geluid (light and Sound) • Vincent van Meenen (nijgh en van ditmar)

Vincent van Meenen of Antwerp won the WriteNow! writing competition in 2012 and has just released his much-anticipated debut novel. Licht en Geluid is hailed as a literary road movie, but it’s one that loses its direction slightly. Young No decides to leave the city after a fight with his father to track down a statuette that his father sold to an art dealer in Munich. With his room-mate, Simon, he embarks on a wild journey through Europe, fleeing a past filled with regret and sorrow. Sadly, they – and the book – never quite find their way.

More new books this Month

rebecca BenootMore articles by rebecca \ flanderstoday.eu

© keke keukelaar

I thought it was very funny to be confronted with comments like, ‘That house isn’t there’, considering the story is completely fictional

february 24, 2016

\ 15

concert

Festival stand-up

visual arts

Film director Agnès Varda comes home at age 87 to present the nostalgic multimedia exhibition Patates & Compagnie. Before she helped pioneer the French New Wave with ground-breaking films like La Pointe Courte (1955) and Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), and before she won a host of lifetime achieve-

ment awards from film festivals as prestigious as Cannes, Varda spent a humble childhood in the leafy Brussels suburb of Elsene. This exhibition translates her earliest memories of the Elsene ponds, the Flemish coast and (why not?) pota-toes into a series of photographs and video installations. \ GV

American alt rock group Fun Lovin’ Criminals made the scene in 1995 with their debut album Come Find Yourself and hit single “Scooby Snacks”. The eclectic trio – whose influences range from post-punk to hip-hop to Taran-tino films – have since proven they weren’t just a flash in the pan. Six

studio albums and 20 years later, they celebrate the album that started it all with an anniversary tour. A concert in De Warande is the first of a three-night stand in Flanders that also takes in Leuven and Ghent, but this is the only date with tickets left. \ Georgio Valentino

Leuven wants to rescue Hendrick De Clerck from obscurity. Its latest

exhibition recasts this largely forgotten 16th-century painter as a master propagandist, campaigning to win one of the highest crowns in Europe.De Clerck made his name in the Northern Mannerist style, inspired by the Italian Renaissance with a hint of Gothic thrown in. Little is known about his early life, but in 1594 he was appointed court painter to Archduke Ernst, who had been installed in Brussels as governor of the Spanish Nether-lands. When Ernst died a year later,

De Clerck passed to his succes-sor, Archduke Albert. Not content with ruling this corner of Europe, Albert and his wife Isabella aspired to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire, then held by Albert’s brother Rudolf. As a court painter, it became De Clerck’s job to make Albert and Isabella look imperial.The Leuven exhibition brings together the evidence for this campaign. It begins with sketches De Clerck made for paintings, now lost, to mark Albert’s glorious entry into Brussels in 1596. One, for example, shows him being greeted by Bruxella, a female personifica-tion of the city, as the saviour of the Netherlands.

Alongside this obvious propa-ganda are more complex images

that cast Albert and Isabella as gods and heroes, tweaking famil-iar myths for political ends. A scene from the musical contest between Apollo and Pan, for exam-ple, places an incongruous image of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, at Apollo’s elbow. The sugges-tion is that the golden couple will triumph thanks to skill and reason.Unfortunately for De Clerck, the campaign failed, and, in 1612, the imperial crown went to another brother, Matthias. Albert turned his attention to the Counter-Refor-mation, setting aside De Clerck’s stodgy Mannerism in favour of the crowd-pleasing Baroque of Peter Paul Rubens. \ Ian Mundell

American comedian Greg Proops is best known for his work on both the UK and US productions of the improvisational comedy series Whose Line Is It Anyway? (Fandom will also recognise him as the two-headed pod-race announcer Fode in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.) Stand-Up Antwerp hosts the Flemish leg of Proop’s world tour of Proopcast, an app-enhanced live show in which the self-styled “Smartest Man in the World” riffs on current events and life in general. Proops delivers a totally different stream-of-conscious-ness set every night. \ GV

Spin doctor to the royals

Hendrick De Clerckconcert brusselsMarcelo Nisinman: Members of the Royal Brus-sels Conservatory hook up with the Argentinian bando-neon player, one of the world’s leading tango musicians, performing his own work as well as arrangements of clas-sics by the likes of Astor Piaz-zola in half a dozen different configurations, varying from jazz ensemble to string quar-tet. 26 February 20.00, Molière, Naamsepoortgalerij, Bolwerk-square 3

\ muziekpublique.be

classicalantwerp & GhentRussian Masters: Royal Ballet Flanders hosts Russian-German conductor Dmitri Jurowski, who leads the orchestra through the ballet music of four of the 19th century’s greatest Russian masters and opera compos-ers: Glinka, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchai-kovsky. 26 February 20.00, Ghent; 28 February 15.00, Antwerp

\ operaballet.be

visual artsbrusselsRembrandt in Black and White: Some 80 origi-nal sketches by one of the most famous Dutch artists of the 17th century, includ-ing portraits, landscapes and nudes. 26 February to 29 May, Bozar, Ravensteinstraat 23

\ bozar.be

hasseltJazz Age: The Roaring ’20s: Exhibition exploring the boundary-pushing fashion of the jazz age and its contin-uing influence on designers today. Until 13 March, Hasselt Fashion Museum, Gasthuis-straat 11

\ modemuseumhasselt.be

FilMbrusselsBelgica: Premiere of Flemish director Felix van Groenin-gen’s fifth film, which recently won him the award for best director at America’s famous Sundance Film Festival. 29 February 20.00, Bozar, Raven-steinstraat 23

\ bozar.be

partYGhentPoplife: Dance music party, with DJs spinning everything from pop and electro to dance classics and old school hip-hop. 27 February 23.00-6.00, Vooruit, Sint-Pietersnieuw-straat 23

\ poplife.be

The fifth anniversary edition of Living on the Edge explores the social potential of failure. Let’s face it: We all fail at some point and most failures can become “teach-able moments” – if we approach them with the right attitude. This four-day community festi-val boasts discussions and activi-ties in addition to cultural events. It’s entertainment, education and therapy all poured into one giant fail cocktail. The festival kicks off with a special edition of FuckUp Nights during which several speak-ers recount their biggest profes-sional failures. Music is provided by Flanders’ most charming self-deprecator, Nele Needs a Holiday (pictured). \ GV

fun lovin’ criminals

living on the Edge 5

agnès varda

greg Proops

\ aGenDa

M Museum, leuven mlEuvEn.BE

until 15 may

De warande, Turnhout warandE.BE

2 march, 20.15Museum van elsene, brussels musEumvanElsEnE.BE

25 february until 29 may

brussels art factory antihEroEs.org

25-28 februaryDe Groene waterman, antwerp groEnEwatErman.BE

22 march, 19.30

© Private collection, courtesy Haboldt & Co, Paris and new york

“Ceres, Venus and bacchus” by Hendrick De Clerck

get tickets now

february 24, 2016

\ 16

facebook.com/flanderstoday

We’re all confused sometimes when it comes to email etiquette, but the Flemish jobs circular Jobat has come up with some useful

tips for those tricky work emails.Bij geschreven communicatie – When you’re corre-sponding in writing, is het altijd opletten met wat je schrijft – it’s always important to take care what you write. Je beschikt niet over dezelfde indicatoren – You don’t get the same signals die je hebt als je iemand face-to-face toespreekt – as you do when you’re talking to someone face to face. Hoewel e-mails best kort en bondig zijn – While it’s best to keep emails short and to the point, kan dat ook aangevoeld worden als een negatieve boodschap of een boze reactie – that can also be seen as a negative message or an angry reaction.In your correspondence, you should avoid using these words: kan niet – can’t, onmogelijk – impossible, verlies – loss, problem – problem, weigeren – refuse, stop – stop, nooit – never, vergissing – mistake, mislukt – flopped, weinig waarde – little value, niet – not, spijtig genoeg – unfortunately, dringend – urgent, ongezond – unhealthy, ondermaats – below par, stommiteit – stupidity, jij bent verantwoordelijk – you are responsi-ble, ramp – disaster and te laat – too late.That might seem like a lot of common words, but, according to Jobat, negativiteit is nooit goed – negativ-ity is never good. Benadruk het positieve – accentuate the positive, they say. Zelfs als je je niet goed voelt over een situatie – even if you don’t feel good about a situa-tion, kan je nog altijd een inspanning doen om je e-mail in de vorm van een positief bericht te gieten – you can always make an effort to compose your email in the

form of a positive message.Het is gemakkelijk om in een negatieve spiraal terecht te komen – it’s easy to get caught up in a negative spiral als je een lijst gaat schrijven van dingen die mensen niet mogen doen – if you just make a list of all the things that people aren’t allowed to do.And if you don’t want to sound rude, never write a sentence like this: Laat niet opgegeten voedsel niet in de kantoorijskast liggen – don’t leave uneaten food in the office refrigerator. In plaats van iemand te vertellen wat ze niet mogen doen – rather than telling someone what they are not allowed to do, kan je hen beter vertellen wat ze wél kunnen doen – it’s better if you tell them what they can do.So here’s what you have to say: Kunnen jullie alsjeblieft jullie lunch weer mee naar huis nemen aan het einde van de dag? – can you please take your lunch home with you at the end of the day?To conclude, here are some useful words to give your email an upbeat feel: voordeel – advantage, het is best om – it’s best to, vooruitgang – progress, success – success and waardevol – valuable.And, please, never, never say nooit.

Talking Dutchnever say nooit

\ baCkPaGe

the last word

stealing awayEastern European gangs hand out maps in Brussels cafes of Belgian towns where thefts have to take place. The thieves are put on a train with one clear mission: Steal as much as possible.”Commissioner Marc Rokegem of the federal police theft squad. Last year the retail industry lost €569 million to shoplifting

cutting a deal“Terrorists should be able to become informants. Information in a terrorism case is of the high-est value. Abdeslam could have helped us to find out more about the structure of the terrorists, in return for a new life or a milder sentence.”Federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw

when in Belgium“She said she had rarely tasted such delicious fries and that she would certainly be coming back.”German chancellor Angela Merkel took time out from the EU summit last week to buy a pack of fries with Andalouse sauce from Antonio Del Vecchio’s celebrated Maison Antoine

Every surgeon for himself“Two out of three students now say they want to become special-ists. In some disciplines that means earning six times more, but they can’t all be cosmetic surgeons. You also have to look at what society needs.”Jan De Maeseneer, professor of general practice at Ghent Univer-sity, is concerned about self-centred ambitions of first-year medical students

a. Totally. If Brussels is serious about getting people out of their cars and on public transport, that would be the way to do it

b. That’s madness. The tunnels were and are a good idea. Just fix them and maintain them like any other municipality would do

c. No, but charge drivers tolls. That would pay for maintenance and snarl traffic enough to get some to turn to public transport

It sounded preposterous at first. As the erosion of Brussels’ tunnels continued, the capital’s former mobility minister Bruno De Lille made a suggestion: Close them down. Close them down? Not only are they a mainstay of the European capital, they keep traffic moving in a famously congested city. You

think traffic is bad now? Try taking all those vehicles out of the tunnels and adding them to the streets above ground.But it seems that De Lille’s sugges-tion got a few people thinking. What would happen if the tunnels where shut? Would that be the turning point for getting people out of their cars and on to public

transport? And imagine the money we’d save trying to keep the tunnels in one piece!Though our readers are perfectly divided on the issue, political opin-ion is less so: De Lille’s view is held only by his own party, Groen. The rest are looking for ways to repair the tunnels without breaking the budget.

Pollshould Brussels shut down its ring road tunnels, as suggested by former mobility minister Bruno de lille?

\ next week's question: Medical insurance institute Riziv has approved a new regulation that allows mutualities to refuse reimbursement for an expensive fibrosis drug if the patient is a smoker. What do you think? Log in to the Flanders Today website at www.flanderstoday.eu and click on VOTE!

CONNECT WITH US LIKE USTweet us your thoughts @flandersToday

Jacqueline WG @hourglassHello from Antwerp! Ready to start exploring the city that created the Antwerp Six.

Kwinten Lambrecht @kwinlambrechtCars or parks in Brussels? It only takes changing three letters, and political courage ;-)

In response to: Two key clubs keep West Flemish music scene rocking & rollingJax Gullible: Looks like another road trip is in order.

In response to: Brussels plans to ban single-use plastic shopping bagsNatalie Arsenow: Yes, yes, YES!!

In response to: Mechelen in Financial Times Top 10 Cities of the FutureSylvie De Weze: Oh no, we've been discovered!

voices oF Flanders todaY

In response to: Debate over priority-to-the-right traffic ruleZoran Djordjevic: I’m for keeping this rule. It’s been common in almost all European countries for so many years.

33%

33%

33%

derek BlythMore articles by Derek \ flanderstoday.eu

© Ingimage

5ELNGFR*bbgbbj+[A\I