15.02.25, 16:00, Who is Yoshio Nakajima, Performance by Yoshio Nakajima with Nick Defour and Merzedes Sturm-Lie & lecture by Martin Schibli

Yoshio Nakajima returns to Belgium after nearly 50 Years!

In 1965, after a series of radical happenings, Yoshio Nakajima was deported from Belgium with just a day’s notice. His final event, Happening 6, saw artists like Panamarenko and Hugo Heyrman turn public space into a stage—so effectively that even the police and fire brigade became part of the performance. The authorities deemed Nakajima a “danger to public safety”, forcing him to leave behind much of his artwork and community.

Now, for the first time since 1975, Nakajima returns. On the occasion of his exhibition UNBEAT!, he will perform this Saturday alongside Nick Defour and Merzedes Sturm-Lie — a happening where nothing is planned, and anything is possible.

The performance will take place on Saturday, February 15th, at 16:00. Afterwards, there will be an English spoken lecture at 18:00, where co-curator Martin Schibli traces Nakajima’s remarkable journey from 1950s Japan to contemporary Sweden.

Yoshio Nakajima

With a career spanning over sixty years, Nakajima’s work has alternated between celebrating the sun as a life-giving force and highlighting global threats, shaped by his experience of the atomic bomb and ecological concerns. His recent work also addresses the events in Ukraine and Palestine.

Nick Defour

Nick Defour 1988 Prehistokrisis, Problems are always 100%, SPY. STAKATTAK. Painting performance poesie and everything else starting with P. Prawing, pulture and a pog called plixa and some pickens. Peace and par! Procodile pinvestigator.

Merzedes Sturm Lie

Interplay of emotion and reason, nature and technology. A temporary passage between worlds, oscillating between chaos and harmony. Exploring current and historical notions of voice originating from the fields of musicology, medical science, and activism.