KIOSK

Once a year, KIOSK invites a Belgian artist for a solo exhibition in the space of the former Anatomical Theatre. On 24 January 2026, Joost Pauwaert opens his new exhibition, A Good Hammering.

Trained as a photographer and shaped by his background as a carpenter, Joost Pauwaert has become known for his bold kinetic sculptures, installations, and performances that balance on the threshold between power and vulnerability, destruction and beauty, technique and poetry.

For KIOSK, Pauwaert has created a large-scale installation in which heavy machinery, saw blades, and festive objects converge in an explosive visual language that evokes both wonder and unease. This new presentation promises to be an intense, physical experience that fully engages the unique character of the Anatomical Theatre.

Joost Pauwaert ’s work explores the relationship between power, beauty, and poetry, often infused with a playful, childlike curiosity. He integrates familiar and symbolic imagery that evokes both recognition and tension. Pauwaert is drawn to the aesthetic of the imposing and the monumental, balancing this with a sense of the caricatural and symbolic wonder that softens its intensity and opens up imaginative possibilities.

About Joost Pauwaert

Joost Pauwaert (1985, Bretzenheim, DE) works and lives in Wilrijk, BE. In the past years his works have been exhibited in numerous exhibitions during several gallery group and solo exhibitions at BARBÉ and other venues such at Ooidonk Art Festival, C-MINE in Genk, Art Brussels w/ Dauwens & Beernaert, Art Cologne w/ Galerie Eric Mouchet (FR), Archipel at Deweer Gallery Estate (Otegem), Art Rotterdam w/ BARBÉ, Ponti gallery (Antwerp), Pizza gallery (Antwerp), Gevaertsdreef (Oudenaarde), PASS kunstroute (Lede) and Emergent in Veurne. After his 2nd solo The End Is Near in 2024 accompanied by the performance Apocalyptic Triumph Parade, one of the sculptures was acquired by Museum of Deinze en De Leiestreek. He also participated in the debut exhibition of ABBY, the contemporary museum in Kortrijk (BE).

Centered on the notion of protocol, Malgré Tout is an exhibition in motion, grounded in transmission, activation, and participation. The four invited artists—Marthe Merckx, Vicente Fuenzalida Lafourcade, and LAB D (Lars Bernakiewicz & Andreas D’hondt)—act simultaneously as authors, performers, and mediators of works that are re-enacted, transformed, and reinvented across different contexts.

Within contemporary art, a protocol refers to a set of instructions, rules, or conditions that determine how a work is realized without necessarily fixing its final form. Drawing on musical scores, dance notation, conceptual art, and performance, this approach shifts attention from the object to the process, from the author to the performer, and from the artwork as a product to the artwork as potential.

The protocol introduces a degree of indeterminacy, repetition, and variation. Each activation becomes a singular interpretation, situated within a specific context and in relation to particular bodies, temporalities, and relationships. The work thus exists malgré tout—despite everything: despite constraints, deviations, translations, and misunderstandings.

As a point of departure, Marthe Merckx, Vicente Fuenzalida Lafourcade, and LAB D activated a work by stanley brouwn: the idea of a square measuring 26 × 26 cm. This square is the work itself—an outline, a potential space in which art can emerge. From this premise, the format was gradually expanded into an empty square of 208 × 208 cm, conceived as eight exhibition spaces within the space.

These squares do not function as boundaries, but as points of departure. The invited artists are allowed to exceed the contours of their assigned zone, provided that the work originates there. Crucially, the square must always remain visible, however minimally. The spatial scenography acts as a constant: the patchwork flooring and the red-and-white striped walls remain unchanged throughout the entire exhibition. This intervention was jointly realized by Merckx, Fuenzalida Lafourcade, and LAB D and functions as a fixed framework within which successive interventions take place.

Following a simple protocol, Merckx, Fuenzalida Lafourcade, and LAB D invited eight young artists. After a period of two weeks, each artist selects another artist to continue working in the same space. This process of transmission repeats itself until the end of the exhibition. In this way, a dynamic of handover emerges in which artists curate one another. The exhibition unfolds as a chain of choices, driven by attention, curiosity, and a pronounced love for the work of others. The viewer is thus offered insight into how artists look at one another—despite everything, malgré tout.

Taking place in KIOSK's side space, the exhibition is organized in collaboration with the artist Nefeli Papadimouli and the École nationale supérieure d’art de Bourges. Malgré Tout mobilizes student communities in Ghent and Bourges to propose protocol-based works or to activate protocol-based works conceived by their peers.

Invited artists 

• Brothers Monteny
• Zoë Dejonghe
• José Haberland
• Katrijn Ooms
• Chiara Sap
• Pepijn Vendel
• Maarten Viaene
• Senne Wettinck

With A Spirit in Painting, Antwerp-based artist Tom Poelmans reveals the reverse sides of a wide selection of works spanning the past fifteen years, exhibited in the side gallery at KIOSK. Poelmans shows the reverse sides of a wide selection of paintings made over the past fifteen years. These unseen backs often bear titles, dates, sketches, material traces, and other marks: silent witnesses to the process and the life of the studio.

On December 6, two weeks prior to the closing of the show, all works will be turned around, revealing their front sides for the first time. That same day, the book A Spirit in Painting will be launched, published by MER. Alongside front and back views of a broad selection of works, the book includes drawings and poems by Tom Poelmans, as well as texts by people close to him.

The title of both the exhibition and the publication is a nod to the legendary 1981 show A New Spirit in Painting, held at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. That historic exhibition marked a renewed appreciation of painting as a medium, and offers a meaningful backdrop to Poelmans’ reflection on his own practice.

In her exhibition Alles pelt zich, Veronika Eberhart presents new work unfolding the layered relationship between materials such as solid wood, veneer, and the machines and tools of woodworking themselves. Removed from their original function, the pieces displayed shift from being utilitarian devices to possessing autonomous existence, hovering between object and sacred presence. Fine incisions and nuanced gestures prompt questions of aesthetics, interiority, and personal experience.

With subtle surface interventions and manual processes, Eberhart considers how labor, design, and memory inscribe themselves into matter. Her works resist fixed interpretations and evoke an extimacy of space, where intimacy and distance blur.

About Veronika Eberhart

Veronika Eberhart is a visual artist and musician based in Vienna. The use of media in her works is distinguished both by its high musicality and the negotiation of conceptual issues with the sensitivity of artistic practices of feminist positions and art history. United in a transdisciplinary approach to video, sound, performance, or sculptural installation, her practice is based on theoretical and historical research and seeks formal translations.

Granted with the Theodor-Körner-Award for Fine Arts (2017) and the Schindler Stipendium at MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles (2019). Recently, she has presented solo exhibitions at KOB- Museum for Contemporary Art, Eupen (2023), Kunsthalle Feldbach (2022), Kunsthalle Graz (2022), Bazament Art Space, Tirana (2018), New Jörg, Vienna (2018), Neue Galerie Graz / Studio (2017) and has appeared in group exhibitions at HKW Berlin (2024), ISCP Open Studio, New York (2023), Makey Garage Top, MAK Center Los Angeles (2020), Kunsthalle Vienna (Vienna Biennale 2019), Kharkiv Municipal Gallery (2019), Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna (2018), rotor Graz (2018) and in the A-GALLERY, Tokyo (2017), among many others.

Parallel programme

• 10.11.25, 20:00
  Screening of films by Friedl Kubelka/vom Gröller, followed by a conversation with Friedl Kubelka/vom Gröller and Veronika Eberhart at Art Cinema OFFoff, Kunsthal Gent..
• 11.11.25, 20:00
  Screening of Impatience (1928) by Charles Dekeukeleire and 9 is one and 10 is none (2017) by Veronika Eberhart at Art Cinema OFFoff, Kunsthal Gent.

KIOSK opens the new exhibition season with Onder Verzachtende Omstandigheden, a solo exhibition by Belgian artist Leen Van Tichelen. The show is the result of GROUND ZERO /51.04536/3.71609, a multidisciplinary residency in which Van Tichelen collaborated with performer Fanny Vandesande, composer Esther Coorevits, and word artist Jonas Bruyneel.

Throughout the summer, KIOSK was transformed into a living studio - part laboratory, part rehearsal space - where image, language, movement, and sound intersected. Boundaries were questioned, shifted, and rewritten.

The exhibition brings together the traces of this process: remnants, transitions, and an ongoing search for form within a space in flux. Onder Verzachtende Omstandigheden is not an endpoint, but a temporary anchoring in a landscape that keeps on moving.

Due to illness, the performance on 18.09.25 at 20:30 has been cancelled. The exhibition remains open.

In 2025, NOON collective began developing And now the beginning is somewhere else – a performative installation that will evolve throughout the season 2025-2026. After a premiere at Beyond the Black Box in Antwerp in May 2025, a first series of adaptations of the installation takes place at the Zwarte Zaal of KASK & Conservatorium.

Over four days, NOON opens the doors of this immersive installation to the public. On Wednesday afternoon, students are invited to immerse themselves in a series of activations. On Thursday and Friday afternoons, visitors can explore and experience the installation, while on Thursday and Friday evenings, the work unfolds as a live performance.

On Sunday, NOON presents the first trial of And now the beginning is somewhere else: NEW LANDSCAPE STORIES – an extended version of their performative installation, developed in the atmosphere of a lab. And now… invites you in a shared landscape where performance and practices mingle, shaped by the impressions, interactions and transformations of the week. A shared Sunday afternoon to rest, play and imagine where it started, all over again.

About And now the beginning is somewhere else

And now the beginning is somewhere else is an immersive performative installation – a space you are invited to enter.

Through an extreme landscape, made out of the logic of foam, you make your way in between suspended time, traces of water and petrol. It seems like nothing can happen here. Yet, with time what simmers under the surface unveils itself. Balancing between stillness and motion, the landscape unravels its memories and narratives, from a long time ago - or maybe, now.

And now the beginning is somewhere else is a performative installation where you are invited inside of. Through sound, light, choreographic elements, and through polypropylene, living beings, water and foam, a world of interwoven relationships begins to emerge.

About NOON collective

NOON is a multidisciplinary collective creating performative installations rooted in questions of how we might be together differently. Their work explores encounters between human and non-human forces, shifting bodies, and the search for – or perhaps the emergence of – new forms of symbiosis. Through layered, sensory experiences, NOON invites us to imagine new modes of connection, cohabitation, and transformation.

Credits

• concept/performing: Iris Donders, Delphine Mertens
• concept/(end) direction: Judith Dhondt
• performing/creation: Im Kanokporn Vorapharuek
• sound creation: Lucie Grésil
• space development: Eline Harmse
• firstobject development: Edie de Vere
• costume creation: stef assandri
• light design: Caroline Mathieu
• dramaturgy: Sara Manente
• choreographic assistant: Anja Röttgerkamp, Janka De Waele
• production: Emma Steurs
• graphic design: Joram De Cocker
• polypropylen research: Elena Vloeberghen
• Co-production C-TAKT, KAAP & SoAP
• With the finan­ci­al sup­port of the Flemish Government and Stad Ghent
• Supported by BUDA, CAMPO, KASK & Conservatorium (HOGENT – Howest), KIOSK, De School van Gaasbeek, de Koer, de Verffabriek, A Two Dogs Company, Mouvance ASBL, Kunstenwerkplaats pianofabriek, and Garage 29

The second performance of GROUND ZERO also marks the opening of Onder Verzachtende Omstandigheden. The exhibition by Leen Van Tichelen brings together the traces of this process: remnants, transitions, and an ongoing search for form within a space in flux.

About the project

Throughout the summer months, KIOSK became the home of GROUND ZERO /51.04536/3.71609, a multidisciplinary residency led by visual artist Leen Van Tichelen, who invited performer Fanny Vandesande, composer Esther Coorevits, and word artist Jonas Bruyneel. Over three months, the artists collaborated across disciplines—image, word, movement, and sound—merging their practices into a fluid, site-responsive methodology.

While the gallery remained closed to visitors, KIOSK itself transformed into a living studio—part laboratory, part rehearsal space—where boundaries are tested, unraveled, and rewritten.

The title, GROUND ZERO /51.04536/3.71609, marks both a beginning and a place. The geographic coordinates point to the exact site of the performance, grounding the inquiry in a specific reality while opening space for new artistic trajectories to emerge.

Support the project

To financially support the project GROUND ZERO / 51.04536 / 3.71609, Leen Van Tichelen created a special edition. Here’s a warm invitation to visit the crowdfunding page on voordekunst.nl.

Throughout the summer months, KIOSK becomes the home of GROUND ZERO /51.04536/3.71609, a multidisciplinary residency led by visual artist Leen Van Tichelen, who invited performer Fanny Vandesande, composer Esther Coorevits, and word artist Jonas Bruyneel. Over three months, the artists collaborate across disciplines—image, word, movement, and sound—merging their practices into a fluid, site-responsive methodology.

While the gallery remains closed to visitors, KIOSK itself is transformed into a living studio—part laboratory, part rehearsal space—where boundaries are tested, unraveled, and rewritten.

Catch an early trace of this continuously unfolding project at Bijloke Wonderland, where GROUND ZERO reveals its first public moment, shaped as much by change as by the physical and conceptual landscape it occupies.

The title, GROUND ZERO /51.04536/3.71609, marks both a beginning and a place. The geographic coordinates point to the exact site of the performance, grounding the inquiry in a specific reality while opening space for new artistic trajectories to emerge.

Support the project

To financially support the project GROUND ZERO / 51.04536 / 3.71609, Leen Van Tichelen created a special edition. Here’s a warm invitation to visit the crowdfunding page on voordekunst.nl.

For the sixth year in a row, you are invited to Bijloke Wonderland, a summer cultural festival from Thursday 21 to Sunday 31 August at the bustling Bijloke site in Ghent. Expect tantalising sunrise concerts, free summer bar concerts, theatre, dance, visual arts & tours. Discover special locations on the Bijlokesite and get carried away by a programme for young and old. This year, for the first time, there will be a continuous programme for 11 consecutive days.

KASK & Conservatorium presents music and visual art by students on the open lawn of the Bijlokesite. Six diverse installations form a temporary landscape, culminating in a musical intervention. KIOSK serves up a performance. The Kunstenbibliotheek organises a zine festival and presents a selection from their zine collection.

The programme is presented by organisations at home on the Bijloke site: Muziekcentrum De Bijloke, LOD muziektheater, STAM, laGeste, Ontroerend Goed and KASK & Conservatorium (HOGENT-Howest).

ongoing

• Kunstenbibliotheek & Shif—t*, Summershelves #2
• Aagje Vandriessche, Capteren
• Vicente Fuenzalida Lafourcade, Floating Garden
• Jean Paul Simons, In de zomer van 2017 werkte Jean Paul Simons enkele maanden
• Michiel Vindevogel, Oculus
• Gill Slosse, Remaining Shadows
• Layla Morando, When Doves Cry

Thu 21.08.25

• Kunstenbibliotheek, Zine-festival, 15:00

Sat 23.08.25

• Leen Van Tichelen, Fanny Vandesande, Jonas Bruyneel & Esther Coorevits, GROUND ZERO /51.04536/3.71609

Sat 30.08.25

• SONduo, Zomermiddagdroom Konzert, 16:00

Sun 31.08.25

• SONduo, Zomermiddagdroom Konzert, 14:30

KIOSK presents a special event to mark the publication of the first comprehensive survey of fifteen years of work by Elen Braga. The screening of her films will be followed by a discussion between the Belgian-Brazilian artist and Simon Delobel, director of KIOSK.

Screening list

• Flesh, Stone, Iron, and Clay, Part 1, 2024, 4'51"
  
• Flesh, Stone, Iron, and Clay, Part 3, 2024, 7'38"
• The Horses Are Coming, 2022, 7'55"
• I am in Love with my Future, 2020, 15'27"
  
• Bloody Flux, 2020, 5'39"
  
• O buraco é fundo / Acabou-se o mundo (The Hole is Deep / The World is Over), 2020, 10'04"
  
• The Plan/e, 2019, 13'33"
  
• The Living Room, 2017, 14'54"
  
• Tão quente que era que pouco mais era morte (It Was So Hot That A Little More Would Mean Death), 2015, 22'01"

About the publication

Renowned for her multidisciplinary approach spanning performance, textiles, installation, sculpture, video, and public art, Braga’s practice draws on resilience, self-transcendence, religion, mythology, and identity. Her work often emerges from self-imposed, labor-intensive processes that are as physically challenging as they are conceptually rich, blending her Brazilian heritage with her life in Belgium. Featuring essays by esteemed art critics and curators Raphael Fonseca, Laila Melchior, Paulo Miyada, Ilse Roosens, and Joanna Zielińska, as well as the artist’s own writings, this monograph documents and critically contextualizes Braga's oeuvre, shedding light on recurring motifs, underlying themes, and the complex interplay between art and life.

Edited by Pieter Vermeulen, with support by the Flemish Government.

Over the past ten years, Claudia Bitrán has meticulously recreated Titanic (1997) shot for shot. In her film Titanic, a Deep Emotion, she reimagines James Cameron’s blockbuster using only lo-fi materials, paint, and DIY sets. More than 1,200 participants from 20 cities across the United States, Chile, and Mexico have contributed as actors, crew, and collaborators. A low-budget production, partially supported by artist residencies and grants, the film comes to life through handmade props, spontaneous casting, and a dynamic mix of animation and live action, where characters continuously shift.

For its European première, Bitrán presents the work in the anatomical theater of KIOSK, a space whose architecture echoes Titanic’s grand staircase. The installation and screening feature painted storyboards, sculptural props, and hand-crafted backdrops, created in collaboration with students from KASK & Conservatorium. These elements form the scenography surrounding a three-channel video installation—a maximalist attempt to deconstruct and reimagine one of the most iconic blockbusters ever made.

Mark your calendar and join us on March 29th for the grand opening of the Coopman CVL Partners store at KIOSK Gent! Experience an exclusive event featuring over 1,000 unique items, from guns and knives to fossils, toy cars, and electronic devices. Tony Coopman, the better kind of capitalist, sees value in everyday objects and rare finds. This special event gives you the chance to trade physical items for COOPCOIN. The more coins you earn, the more you can invest in items you find in our store. Koop! Coop! Buy!

Tony Coopman CVL Partners are present on:

• 03.04.25, 10:00-14:45
• 10.04.25, 10:00-14:45
• 30.04.25, 10:00-14:45
• 08.05.25, 10:00-14:45
• 15.05.25, 10:00-14:45
• 19.05.25, 10:00-14:45

Artist talk organised on the occasion of the exhibition Titanic - a deep emotion by Claudia Bitrán in KIOSK.

The latest edition of the art magazine De Nadruk focuses on Yoshio Nakajima’s exhibition UNBEAT! at KIOSK and is produced by Stefan Wouters together with students from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp (DKO).

"In this edition of De Nadruk, we highlight visual artist Yoshio Nakajima (1940) and delve into various aspects of the rich Japanese culture, where—much like in Nakajima's work—tradition and innovation take center stage. We explore the influential Japanese cinema, feature a contemporary art gallery in Tokyo, and ‘unfold’ the art of origami. Additionally, we shine a spotlight on the artist collective Ndaku Ya La Vie Est Belle, who will perform during Nakajima’s exhibition."

On March 16th, Lara Finkenstädt will present her sound installation City Girls. The recorded text will drift through the exhibition space, exploring "the ubiquitous figure of the girl as a self." Drawing on her research and visits to several Art Nouveau houses in Brussels, Finkenstädt seeks to immerse herself in the lives once lived there, constructing an abstract world that shifts between layers of time and place.

Lara Finkenstädt (°2001) is an artist based in Offenbach, Germany. Her practice spans slideshows, installations, and writing, often exploring the intersection of personal and public histories. Using visual and textual found footage, her work maps the movement of women through cities and interiors. Her arrangements, often reminiscent of mood boards, organize images in a way that blends collage with archival methods.

Abstract Entities

De tentoonstelling Abstract Entities van Thomas Hitchcock dient als een open platform voor tijdelijke interventies door Belgische kunststudenten. Gedurende de tentoonstellingsperiode zullen er tal van interventies plaatsvinden in verschillende media, waaronder performances, muziek, collectieve lezingen, gesprekken, workshops, discussies, lichaamspraktijken, poëzie en filmvertoningen.

A character akin to a disenchanted Pierrot takes on the guise of a virtuoso karaoke anti-hero. From his multifunction Android, he lights up the crowd with his thunderbolt, sometimes melancholy, sometimes ironically joyful. His shy, dark dance makes him furtive, stormily in love with his shadow. Losing himself to the sordid refrains, his icy mirrors embracing him all around, these copies impervious to dynamic detours, impenetrable voyeurs of his brilliance. Deceptively subtle, with skillful dimples, he crosses cities, rivers, forests, and people.

Garance Debert is a French performance artist based in Brussels. She is developing a practice at the crossroads of dance, performance, and video, and occasionally tries her hand at publishing. Her work explores the body as an archive and a space for transmission, where gesture becomes a territory for experimentation and reactivation. Through an anachronistic approach to movement, she hijacks the codes of mime, virtuosity, and the grotesque to question how meaning and the common imagination appear and disappear. Her work questions the origins of performativity by turning notions of virtuosity and superficiality on their head. Between expressiveness and emptiness, instability and precision of gesture, she sees the stage as a collective, interactive space where memory is embodied without nostalgia. She trained as a classical and contemporary dancer, earning a DNSPD at the CNDC in Angers before moving on to the ERG in Brussels, where she graduated with great distinction with a Master's degree in Visual Arts. Her work has been presented in a variety of artistic contexts, including institutions such as WIELS, Bozar Rooftop, and CC Strombeek, and experimental spaces such as Ateliers Mommen, the Project(ion) Room, and SB34. Alongside her artistic practice, she has developed a curatorial activity and organized events combining exhibitions and performances in Brussels, notably L'Opéra Discret at the 312 Foundations and Grotte et Ist at the Ateliers du Loto.

Abstract Entities

Thomas Hitchcock's exhibitionAbstract Entities serves as an open platform for temporary interventions by Belgian art students. Throughout the exhibition period, a multitude of interventions will unfold across various media, including performances, music, collective readings, talks, workshops, discussions, body practices, poetry, and screenings.

In my daily life—through my thoughts and struggles—living here in Ghent, far from my hometown, I find myself longing for the past. I miss the moments I can no longer experience, and the loss of a loved one feels like a heavy wave crashing over my mind. I seek to connect my experiences here with my memories, weaving together the past and present.

As I reflect, my struggle deepens. I think of those I have lost, which inspires me to write stories about them, recreating our moments together through pictures and words. It is my way of connecting with them, among all the time I lost and can never get back, or perhaps the only way.

This project was never a conscious decision; it has always been present in my thoughts, interwoven with my fears and anxieties. It is a work in progress one without a definite ending because the more I try to remember, the more stories I find to write. It is an ongoing exploration without an end.

Countless reasons pull me further from my past, but I am trying to push the boundaries of my mind, writing these moments down to erase even one of the thousand reasons that distance me.

• Ava Darvishi

Ava Darvishi is a theatermaker and actress from Iran who is currently based in Ghent. She has been a member of Sada Ghent Playback Theatre since 2022. Ava has performed in several international projects, including Voicelessness, performed at Apparatus in Seoul in 2024, and Medea at the Bozar Institute in Brussels in 2018.

Ava Darvishi holds a BA in Acting from the Art and Architecture University in Tehran, an MA in Puppet Theater from the University of Tehran, and a postgraduate degree in Digital Storytelling from KASK & Conservatorium. She is currently pursuing studies in drama at KASK & Conservatorium.

Abstract Entities

Thomas Hitchcock's exhibition Abstract Entities serves as an open platform for temporary interventions by Belgian art students. Throughout the exhibition period, a multitude of interventions will unfold across various media, including performances, music, collective readings, talks, workshops, discussions, body practices, poetry, and screenings.

An exercise in connection and separation#4 is a performance by Rosa Lut, in which she tries to get a grasp on the space in between. She divides up the room and the audience with blue lines, to explore what it’s like to be separated from each other. The lines make visible the distance between us, marking the place where one thing ends and the other begins. But can these lines also be a place of longing, a place of desire for what’s on the other side?

As a pre-master student Autonomous Design, Rosa Lut (she/her) has been researching borders as a potential place for connection. By visiting and documenting the border between Belgium and her birth country, The Netherlands, she explores what it’s like to be on the line between two cultures. Recent political developments are showing the urgency of redefining this space, not only as a place where two things are separated, but also as a place where two things come together, which is what Rosa tries to do in her work.

Abstract Entities

Thomas Hitchcock's exhibition Abstract Entities serves as an open platform for temporary interventions by Belgian art students. Throughout the exhibition period, a multitude of interventions will unfold across various media, including performances, music, collective readings, talks, workshops, discussions, body practices, poetry, and screenings.

In this intervention, we will create collective drawings together, based on a few texts that I have written around the word Naveldrager. I will start reading the texts (Dutch spoken) and we will continue by drawing our associations together on a big piece of paper for one hour. After the drawing, we will gather in a circle for a short reflection.

Bo Lemmens

About Bo Lemmens: I am in my first year of the Bachelor Media Art at KASK & Conservatorium. My work often starts with writing from an image that I have in my mind. I later connect these images to the physical world, to tangible material, that you can feel with your hands. This results in several media. At the moment I use embroidery as a medium to make words tactile.

Abstract Entities

Thomas Hitchcock's exhibition Abstract Entities serves as an open platform for temporary interventions by Belgian art students. Throughout the exhibition period, a multitude of interventions will unfold across various media, including performances, music, collective readings, talks, workshops, discussions, body practices, poetry, and screenings.

In Model of Matter, I explore the complex relationship between the body and body images, focusing on the principles of beauty and the mutability of our perceptions. The body often acts as a victim of the compelling norms and ideals that prevail within body culture, similar to the way the Art Nouveau movement used nature as inspiration to capture beauty in its most elegant and fluid forms. The relentless comparison with others, and the incessant competition that ensues, leads to a deeper form of alienation - both from ourselves and each other. When is our body no longer ourselves, but rather an object in the eyes of others? Historically, art has always served as a mirror of society, a detailed representation of what we wanted to see. This reflection creates a consciousness that forces us to view ourselves through the lens of the other. In this underlying struggle, I find it essential to dissect and re-examine existing images. My art is a communicative tool that offers opportunities to question and break down established norms surrounding bodies.

• Wolfe De Roeck

As a performer, Wolfe De Roeck’s art practice centers on the re-presentation of physicality, exploring the limits of body-ness and transforming it into a deeper, conceptual experience. Through the use of virtual technologies, rituals and traditional elements, she creates a unique fourth dimension within performance, in which action theater plays an important role. She considers space not merely as a backdrop, but as an organic extension of her body, shaped by structures and objects that are in direct connection with her presence. Her work is steeped in movement; it is a continuous search for the dynamics of locomotion. Wolfe strives to dissect values while building an innovative visual identity characterized by shifts and changes. For her, performance acts as a means to unframe and reframe the observable, challenging the viewer to experience reality from new perspectives. Her artistic practice is an invitation to reshape the intimate relationship between maker and beholder, creating a space for reflection and connection.

Abstract Entities

Thomas Hitchcock's exhibition Abstract Entities serves as an open platform for temporary interventions by Belgian art students. Throughout the exhibition period, a multitude of interventions will unfold across various media, including performances, music, collective readings, talks, workshops, discussions, body practices, poetry, and screenings.

Mummanoïds is a performance centered around artificial, humanoid entities. They resemble humans but lack a soul, a history, a consciousness. This work explores the boundaries between humanity and artificial construction, questioning what it truly means to be ‘present.’

These gender-neutral entities leave space for interpretation, inviting an intuitive approach. My personal story is subtly woven into every detail, surrounded by silences and open questions. The underlying theme touches on a deeper struggle: a body that does not always feel like home, an identity shifting between fixed categories. Mummanoïds embody this duality—present yet untouched, visible yet elusive.

The viewer is invited into a dialogue, not only with a body or an object but with an artwork that asks for recognition and understanding. The work acts as a mirror—not just of the human form but of the emotions and thoughts it evokes. This creates a moment where observation, emotion, and creation merge into a shared experience.

This performance highlights the complexity of identity, memory, connection, and alienation. Every detail becomes a story, captured in the interplay of light and shadow that fills the space. Mummanoïds is a dialogue between what is seen and what remains hidden, between the tangible and the unspoken, between a skin that both protects and confines.

• Günther De Beuckelaer

About Me: At 51, I made a drastic decision: I left my professional career behind and chose to study again at KASK & Conservatorium Ghent, specializing in Visual Arts. In a world shifting further to the right, I feel the urgency to raise my voice and spread a message of tolerance, inclusion, and diversity. For me, art is the ultimate language to visualize and share these emotions.

As a performer, I often use my own body as a medium of expression. My work balances between autobiography, artistic inspiration, and imagination. By integrating the fragility of my nakedness into my performances, I aim to bring inner processes to the surface and engage in a deeper dialogue with my audience.

Abstract Entities

Thomas Hitchcock's exhibition Abstract Entities serves as an open platform for temporary interventions by Belgian art students. Throughout the exhibition period, a multitude of interventions will unfold across various media, including performances, music, collective readings, talks, workshops, discussions, body practices, poetry, and screenings.

Our intervention consists of taping a square on the floor of KIOSK, creating a conceptual space that explores boundaries, time and virtuality. This process involves experimenting with camera angles, filters and perspectives to shape a digital space. This temporary action serves as a basis for the video work presented in KIOSK. The project connects themes of elasticity and reflection, using humour, repetition and exaggeration to explore the space between physical and digital spaces.

Emma Crombé & Louis Dewitte

Emma Crombé and Louis Dewitte are a Ghent-based artist duo who met at KASK & Conservatorium. Their work combines humour, irony and everyday elements, dissecting and reassembling familiar objects and ideas. Emma focuses on themes such as laughter and societal hierarchies, while Louis explores layered meanings through bright colours and playful imagery. Together they create multimedia installations, videos and paintings. Their collaborative projects, such as the exhibition Geluk zit in de kleine dingen (2024), highlight their shared interest in self-referentiality and nostalgia.

Abstract Entities

Thomas Hitchcock's exhibition Abstract Entities serves as an open platform for temporary interventions by Belgian art students. Throughout the exhibition period, a multitude of interventions will unfold across various media, including performances, music, collective readings, talks, workshops, discussions, body practices, poetry, and screenings.

My intervention invites participants to record themselves walking from the kiosk to the art library, capturing the physical movement but also their thoughts, feelings, and experiences during the process—such as how they feel while recording in public or what thoughts arise along the way. Then, they walk the same route again while listening to someone else’s recording. By following another person’s steps, they might notice subtle differences in movement, focus, or presence. The performance creates a quiet space where personal and shared experiences meet, giving attention to what usually remains unspoken.

• Zita Bruyland
  

About Zita Bruyland: In my work, I explore ways to address contemporary themes such as artificial intelligence, beauty standards, social media, and societal structures. I experiment with text, image, sound, and performance, seeking confrontation, dialogue, and interaction. In doing so, I not only question the world around me but also examine my own actions, position, and responsibility within it. My interest in activism plays a significant role in this process. In addition to theater and performance, I have a passion for film and acting on camera.

Abstract Entities

Thomas Hitchcock's exhibition Abstract Entities serves as an open platform for temporary interventions by Belgian art students. Throughout the exhibition period, a multitude of interventions will unfold across various media, including performances, music, collective readings, talks, workshops, discussions, body practices, poetry, and screenings.

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.

Performance + lecture by Bram Borloo & Ndaku Ya La vie Est Belle

Ndaku Ya La vie Est Belle

Ndaku Ya La Vie Est Belle, founded by Eddy Ekete, is an artistic cooperative and laboratory established in Kinshasa, since 2018. It is home to the KINACT festival, an annual event held each August that brings together international performance artists. KINACT's mission is to raise awareness about environmental and social issues while engaging the Kinois (inhabitants of Kinshasa) by bringing art to the streets for those who lack access to traditional visual art events. In addition to being a vibrant carnival of living sculptures crafted from waste materials, KINACT serves as a unique educational program.

Bram Borloo

Bram Borloo (b. 1976, Louvain, Belgium) is a visual artist, performer, musician, and organizer. He graduated with a Master's degree in Sculpture from the LUCA School of Arts in 1999. Currently, he lives and works in Brussels and partly in Kinshasa. His work consists of painting, sculpture, installation, sound art, and performance. Since 2018, Borloo has been a member of the KinAct collective. In 2021, he founded the collective Bilia Na Biso.

Abstract Entities, Thomas Hitchcock's solo exhibition at KIOSK, delves into the intersections of Belgium’s Art Nouveau and Europe’s fin de siècle cultural period and contemporary technological developments. Situated within the context of today’s global capitalism and digital shifts, he critically examines and juxtaposes themes of exploitation within a broader movement of retreating into interiority and dream-like realms.

Abstract entities (interventions)

Hitchcock’s sculptural installation, within KIOSK’s former anatomical theater, functions as an open platform for temporary interventions by students. All forms of interventions are welcome, including performances, music, collective readings, talks, workshops, discussions, body practices, poetry, open mic sessions, screenings, and more.

See the full programme

About Thomas Hitchcock

Trained as a sculptor, Thomas Hitchcock combines elaborately crafted works with found objects that he displays as such or that he enhances through small staged actions. Through his work, the Austrian artist explores the multi-layered political implications of the involved gaze in stage-like settings. He lives and works in Vienna, although longer working stays have so far taken him to Lisbon, Berlin, Brussels, and Paris where he participated in the WIELS Residency Program in 2022 and to Cité Internationale des Arts in 2023.

Together with artists such as Hugo Heyrman, Panamarenko, and Wout Vercammen, Japanese artist Yoshio Nakajima organized "NU HAPPENING! of an Occupied City III" in Antwerp on July 9, 1965. This iconic happening addressed societal issues such as traffic safety, air pollution, the Vietnam War, and the threat of the atomic bomb. UNBEAT! sheds light on the crucial role Yoshio Nakajima played in the Antwerp happenings of the 1960s.

The title of the exhibition refers to "unbeat," a nickname Nakajima also used during his collaborations with Hugo Heyrman (Happy Space Maker), Panamarenko (Multimillionaire), and Wout Vercammen (Nihil) in Belgium. This name originated from the Japanese artist collective 'Tokyo UNBEAT Group', which Nakajima founded in 1958 with Tashiro Minou and Kagami Masayuki. Their 1961 manifesto states: "We do rituals that express our desire to reach absolute freedom ... you must try to read it in the catastrophic and apathetic situation of our generation ... Unbeat Organizers is a collective of independent spirits, and we are witnesses to the temporary insanity prevailing in our century."

After several happenings in Belgium, Nakajima was arrested and deported. Following a few months in West Germany and Copenhagen, he moved to Sweden, where he became active in various international avant-garde movements, such as The Bauhaus Situationiste – Second Situationist International and The International Ubbeboda Symposium. UNBEAT! explores Nakajima’s role in the Antwerp happenings, his connection to the PROVO movement, and his interconnected activities in Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Belgium.

The exhibition and its accompanying public program, featuring lectures and performances at KIOSK, were developed within the project Public mediation as an artistic practice. Since February 2024 Merzedes Sturm-Lie has been realising this project which harbors as one of its aims to foster new collaborations and connections, both locally and internationally.

In parallel, the anatomical theater hosts Thomas Hitchcock’s exhibition Abstract Entities, where Belgian art students are given the opportunity to present performative work. This overlap creates an interesting dialogue, particularly in light of a historical precedent: in 1965, Yoshio Nakajima moved to Antwerp where he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. There, he met Panamarenko and Hugo Heyrman, which quickly led to the realization of several Happenings.

UNBEAT! is curated by Merzedes Sturm-Lie and Martin Schibli. The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Yoshio Nakajima Archive, M HKA, Stefan Wouters, Roger D’Hondt, and Marie-Hélène Van Audenhove (New Reform Archive).

The first happening that Yoshio Nakajima, together with Hugo Heyrman, performed at the Groenplaats in Antwerp (9/07/1965) was unprecedented in Belgium. Dozens of newspapers and magazines reported on it, and even national television was present. Following their lead, other artists and activists began organizing happenings, giving birth to a tradition of "ephemerality and resistance." Nakajima is therefore regarded as the pioneer of the Belgian happening scene. Stefan Wouters will give a presentation on these fascinating events.

Stefan Wouters

Stefan Wouters (b. 1972) obtained a joint PhD in 2015 from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the University of Antwerp, specializing in art sciences, archaeology, and theater sciences (Vluchtigheid en verzet. Sporen van het internationaal Happeninggebeuren in België, 2016). He is currently co-coordinator of the René Magritte Museum/Museum of Abstract Art (Jette-Brussels) and teaches contemporary art and cultural philosophy at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp (DKO).

Hans Demeulenaere, Nikolaas Demoen en Marc Nagtzaam invite Anthea for a performance at KIOSK on the occasion of the closing of their exhibition Unfolding Structures of Exchange. Welcome!

About Anthea

Anthea aka Anthea Demoen is a 23-year-old singer from Ghent who creates an intimate atmosphere with her live performances, while her music simultaneously invites you to move along. Her EP Love in Distortion is a perfect introduction to her world of electronic sounds and heartfelt lyrics.

A red rectangular frame that is part of an installation by Hans Demeulenaere at the exhibition One way or another, 10 years of Posture Editions in S.M.A.K. (30.10 - 28.11.2021) remains behind in the museum due to the artist's forgetfulness.

This absent-mindedness forms the starting point for the exhibition Unfolding Structures of Exchange. What happens when three artists exchange this red nomadic frame among themselves and shape it to their sculptural, drawing, and choreographic hand?

The exhibition is formed around a long folded paravent and is a mirror of the folded leporello with the same title, published by Roma Publications.

This book is presented at the opening of the exhibition. On the occasion of the exhibition, the artists each made an artist's edition in 20 copies.