#386 Erkenningsnummer P708816
jUNE 24, 2015 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ read more at www.flanderstoday.eu current affairs \ p2
Driving debate
politics \ p4
BUSiNESS \ p6
innovation \ p7
New campus for tech
education \ p11
art & living \ p13
Are you ready to rock?
As the debate on Belgium’s company car culture rages on, a new department chair will gather statistics for the first time
Antwerp’s University College has a brand new campus for its science and tech departments – and none too soon
Jazz, blues, pop or monsters of rock: Check out our festival guide to plan your summer of music
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Nomads and ghosts
Questions of identity infuse Ghent’s new summer photo festival Sally Tipper More articles by Sally \ flanderstoday.eu
Ghent’s first citywide photography festival tackles themes of identity with powerful photo essays that explore what it’s like to be a Gentenaar, to lose your sense of self when you grow old and to be fat in a society that values the opposite
G
hent is a festival city. There’s Ghent Jazz, Gentse Feesten, Ghent Film Fest, Ghent Light Festival – all that was really missing was a photo festival. But no longer. To fill the gap in the city’s cultural calendar, heritage organisation Historische Huizen Gent has created 80 Days of Summer, Ghent’s first citywide photo festival, which takes in 10 historic venues with 30 exhibitions by 20 photographers. The focus is on identity, and the walking trail puts the identity of the city itself in the spotlight, too, inviting visitors to explore with photography as their guide. “We’ve collected a range of visual stories about identity,” says Anke D’Haene of Historische Huizen Gent. “But we also found it very important to make the link with our heritage, as we have so many beautiful monuments and buildings in the city.” The venues include the STAM city museum, Sint-Baafs Abbey and the Dr Guislain Museum, as well as Historische Huizen Gent’s Facebook page, where Lisa Van Damme is curating an ongoing series of photo essays about the city’s inhabitants called Humans of Ghent. But at the heart of 80 Days of Summer, and typical of the medieval-meets-contemporary ethos, is Sint-Pieters Abbey. It’s the nerve centre of the event, hosting four exhibitions and acting as a meeting place for visitors wanting to experience the parcours. Among its exhibitions is The Inner Circle of Europe by young Flemish photographer Gert Verbelen, who travelled to the geographical centre of 18 countries in search of a specific European identity, immersing himself in each community for a week at a time. The resulting images show a remarkable level of intimacy. A man sits asleep in a chair in his living room; a mother lies with her child in bed beneath a huge animal skin that hangs on the wall; a boy stands in the street clutching a rifle. Verbelen says he also saw his own identity reflected through his choice of subjects. London-based Swedish photographer Maja Daniels immersed herself in a community of a different kind for her series Into Oblivion. She lived in a geriatric hospital in France for up to a week at a time over the course of three years, photographing residents with dementia in an attempt to understand their lives. There are no carers to be seen in these images, where pastel tones and abundant light can’t soften the pervading atmosphere of loneliness. “The importance for me is really what it might be like to live in this place, from the point of view of the residents,” Daniels says. She’s interested in identity construction and in the body, she explains. “So my interest was in what happens with continued on page 5
© Katharine MacDaid