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november 9, 2016 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ read more at www.flanderstoday.eu current affairs \ p2

In Flanders Fields

Flanders is building another memorial garden to honour the fallen soldiers of the First World War, this time in Australia’s capital \2

politics \ p4

BUSiNESS \ p6

Eet smakelijk

The annual food festival Week van de Smaak is back, this year celebrating oldfashioned methods that are hip again, like canning and baking \ 11

innovation \ p7

education \ p9

art & living \ p10

Beyond stereotypes

An exhibition of Congolese painting at Bozar goes beyond the masks and fabrics sold to tourists to show us a culture we still don’t know \ 13

Sustainable schooldays

Passive building project sets the bar for greener schools in Flanders and Brussels Emma Portier Davis More articles by Emma \ flanderstoday.eu

The government of Flanders is busy supporting the construction of energy-efficient school buildings, as the region strives to meet its climate and sustainability goals.

F

rom the entrance, KA Etterbeek looks anything but modern, with its imposing stone buildings reminiscent of a castle. But tucked away at the back of the site is a small wooden chalet with a green roof, boasting the latest in sustainable technology.

This is KA Etterbeek’s new pre-school, one of 19 pilot projects for passive school buildings in Flanders.

The Flemish government has been busy supporting projects to construct passive school buildings across Flanders and Brussels, as part of a wider policy goal to increase energy performance and sustainability of education facilities. The result: Eight schools have completed building works and are starting to reap the benefits, while works are under way at a further 11.

It appears that passive buildings – energy-neutral buildings that, through clean and green technologies such as solar panels and heat pumps, generate all the energy they need – are the way of the future.

According to one of the project leaders, education network Go Vlaanderen!, the notion of sustainability within the passive school buildings project must also apply in the widest sense, with attention to water use, the building process, safety and comfort.

Flemish education minister Hilde Crevits says the pilot project gives important policy signals as to how the government can help every school meet a regional 2021 goal to reduce energy consumption and become more sustainable. The plan is part of a longer-term goal to make all of Flanders’ public buildings energy-neutral.

Go Vlaanderen!, which is the authority in charge of KA Etterbeek in Brussels, chose the school because its proposal of the renovation of its pre-school already had a strong energy efficiency and sustainability concept. The move to other passive construction techniques was thus easier.

The building, designed to be like a home for pre-schoolers, also has a role to play from an educational point of view

© Courtesy KA Etterbeek

The school was also keen to use the renovation as an opportunity to teach its secondary students about sustainability, which is now part of the curriculum in Flemish schools.

The building, completed in 2013, is clad with wood to ensure excellent insulation (a key to success for a passive building). The roof is a “green roof ”, which is heavily insulated and can also be used to grow plants. Inside, 10 classrooms are clustered around continued on page 5

\ CURRENT AFFAIRS

Flanders Field Memorial Garden to open next year in Australia Government approves funding for First World War monument in Canberra Alan Hope Follow Alan on Twitter \ @AlanHopeFT

T

he government of Flanders has approved a grant of €200,000 for a Flanders Field Memorial Garden in Canberra, Australia, in memory of the many Australian soldiers who died in the First World War. This will be the second such garden: The first is located at the Wellington Barracks in London. The London garden (pictured) opened in 2014, while the garden in Australia’s capital is scheduled to open next spring.

More than 400,000 Australian soldiers – from a population four times less than it is today –

© Evening Standard/BELGA

known grave, and their names are listed on the walls of the Menin Gate in Ypres. The main theatres of battle were Mesen and Passchendaele.

The Memorial Garden will be installed at the Australian War Memorial. It will, like its counterpart in London, be constructed of Portland stone, the same used for the gravestones in the cemeteries dotted around West Flanders and at the Menin Gate. The design, including soil gathered from Flanders, is also based on the Memorial Garden in London.

The inauguration in Canberra is scheduled

fought in the Great War, and 12,000 of those never returned home. Some 6,000 have no

to take place on Anzac Day (25 April), when the fallen of Australia and New Zealand are remembered. A ceremony traditionally takes place in Flanders on the same day.

Belgium is currently recognising the 100th year anniversary of the Great War. “We remember the war not only during the 20142018 period, but also thereafter,” said Flemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois. “The Memorial Gardens will bestow international attention on Flanders Fields as a destination of peace long after 2018.”

Lower threshold for smog alerts Jewish Museum shooting suspect to be The Flemish and Brussels-Capigrams,” Frans Fierens of the extradited to France tal regions have implemented a Belgian Interregional Environnew system to warn the public when the concentration of fine dust in the air is higher than 50 micrograms per cubic metre.

People will be informed via text messages, social media and traffic signs about the nature of the pollution and the impact on health.

Previously, smog alerts were issued when the concentration was higher than 70 micrograms per cubic metre. During a smog alert, there is a speed limit of 90 km/h on motorways.

“People sensitive to air pollution can be affected by 50 micro-

ment Agency told VRT. The new measure should help protect the elderly, children and those suffering from asthma. Notifications will advise them to avoid extensive physical activity outside during smog alerts.

The system is also meant to raise more awareness among drivers, encouraging them to leave the car at home and use public transport on such days. Experts believe that fine dust causes premature deaths. According to a European study, fine dust pollution costs Belgium between €10 and €30 billion a year. \ Andy Furniere

Mehdi Nemmouche, the man accused of killing four people in a shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels in May 2014, can be handed over to the French authorities, a Brussels court has ruled.

France intends to prosecute him for his part in the abduction and torture of four French journalists in Syria in 2013-14. Three of the four journalists recognised Nemmouche from photographs published in the press following his arrest.

Lawyers for the defence opposed the motion to extradite Nemmouche, who was arrested in Marseilles one

© Nicolas Maeterlinck/BELGA

A memorial ceremony held one year after the shooting at the Jewish Museum of Belgium, which killed four people

week after the museum shooting, because he has not yet stood trial in Belgium. Last week for the first time he admitted he was “in a certain way” responsible for the shooting, also confessing to having lied previ-

ously when he said that he found the weapons that were in his possession upon his arrest.

Two men alleged to have helped in the planning of the museum attack were arrested in France and delivered to Belgium. According to a spokesperson for the federal prosecutor’s office, it is still too early to say when Nemmouche might be moved.

The investigation is complete, and the case file is likely to be handed over by the investigating magistrate to the prosecutor by the end of the year, with a view to a trial taking place in 2017. \ AH

Flanders’ child-friendly towns and cities win awards Flemish youth minister Sven Gatz has given eight Flemish municipalities the title of “child-friendly town”. The awards were decided by a jury of organisations that work with young people, including Unicef, the children’s rights commissioner and the association of Flemish youth services.

The winning municipalities are: Temse, Dendermonde and Geraardsbergen in East Flanders; Kortrijk, Middelkerke and Poperinge in West Flanders; Herenthout in Antwerp province; and Leuven in Flemish

Brabant.

“The label of child-friendly town creates a dynamism in local authorities to get to work on children’s rights,” children’s rights commissioner Bruno Vanobbergen said on behalf of the jury. “A child-friendly policy is a policy for all children, and it covers all of the areas that affect children. Which is all of them, from the social aid agency to the parks department.”

The awards ceremony took place in Ghent, one of the recipients in 2014 when the awards

10,000

were last handed out. Ghent is hosting the international Child in the City conference this week. The label had “encouraged Ghent to make work on children’s rights a daily concern”, said Elke Decruynaere, councillor in charge of youth matters.

“Child-friendliness is the same as peoplefriendliness,” Gatz said. “Children are not the only ones to benefit from pleasant surroundings, safe streets or good cultural and youth infrastructure.” \ AH

© Courtesy VVJ

Child-friendly delegation representing Geraardsbergen

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€5,256,000

32,712

60% of 15-year-olds interviewed by the VTM programme Royalty said there was no need for a monarch, just as crown princess Elisabeth turned 15. Some 78% were able to name the princess correctly

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extra parking places at railway stations planned by rail authority NMBS over the next five years. At the start of this year, the NMBS had 62,766 parking spaces

more bankruptcies in Brussels in October, compared to the same month last year, according to business consultancy Graydon. The figure went up from 150 in 2015 to 249 in 2016

proceeds from the sale of 50,000 shares in AB InBev by CEO Carlos Brito at the start of this month, financial industry regulator FSMA announced. The shares sold for an average of €105.13

drivers appealed to the insurance pricing agency in 2015, almost twice as many as in 2010. The agency acts when a driver is unable to obtain coverage from three different insurance companies

november 9, 2016

WEEK in brief Battle Droids, a group of young Antwerp breakdancers, won the Battle of the Year in the under16 category last week in Essen, Germany, defeating finalists from Belarus. The international competition is live-streamed by millions of dance enthusiasts around the world.

Federal justice minister Koen Geens has launched Belgium’s Most Wanted, a website featuring mugshots and details of a selection of criminals currently being sought by the federal police’s Fugitive Active Service Team. The aim is to gather tips from members of the public. The list includes convicted terrorists as well as common criminals. \ mostwanted.federalpolice.be

The co-operative SamenSterker Antwerpen has launched the country’s first group purchase of electric cars. Interested parties can buy a Renault Zoe, with a list price of €24,550, for only €17,095, thanks to a group discount and the Flemish government’s €5,000 premium. Installation of a charging post at home costs €1,500. The group will be organising information evenings in the Antwerp area over the coming weeks. \ samensterker.be

face of flanders payment order, refused to open the door. By law, the bailiff could seize Francken’s belongings and the contents of his office to sell to raise the cash.

Brussels public transport authority MIVB plans to install safety bollards at the entrance to metro stations over the course of next year to prevent a repeat of an incident last New Year’s Eve when vandals pushed a car down the escalators of Clemenceau station in Anderlecht. Some stations already have bollards, while others have entrances too small for such incidents to take place, a spokesperson said.

2018 has been declared Hugo Claus Year in Antwerp, outgoing councillor for culture Philippe Heylen announced last week at the opening of this year’s Boekenbeurs. Claus, considered one of the most important literary talents Flanders has ever produced, was living in the city when he died in 2008. Among the events planned is an exhibition, including original manuscripts and correspondence with contemporaries, and literary walks in the city.

This year’s Hercule Poirot Prize for crime fiction has been won

by Jan Van Der Cruysse, former spokesperson for Brussels Airport, for his debut novel Bling Bling. The novel tells of a diamond courier robbed of his consignment in India. The €5,000 prize was handed over by Herbert Flack, who plays the most famous detective in Flanders, Inspector Pieter Van In, in the TV series Aspe.

American airline Delta has announced that it will resume its direct flight from Brussels Airport to Atlanta next March, after cancelling the route several months ago. The date marks the 25th anniversary of Delta’s presence at the airport. Meanwhile, the Chinese carrier Hainan Airlines has signed a letter of intent with Brussels Airport for a new direct flight to Shanghai from the second half of 2017. This year marks the 10th anniversary of Hainan’s Brussels-Beijing route.

Last week a bailiff came calling at the office of federal asylum minister Theo Francken to collect a penalty sum of €28,000 ordered by a court in the case of a Syrian refugee family refused a visa.

Francken, who is appealing the

A number of Flemish municipalities, including Antwerp, Ghent, Vilvoorde and Maaseik, will receive government funding to employ the so-called Radix tool, which measures the extent to which young people have become radical-

ised, Flemish home affairs minister Liesbeth Homans said. The decision follows the success of a pilot project in Antwerp. The tool gathers data from various sources, like police and social aid agencies, to place young people on a scale of one to four: not vulnerable to very vulnerable. Young people measuring in categories three or four can then be referred to experts.

The Land of the Enlightened by Flemish filmmaker Pieter-Jan De Pue has been nominated for a European Film Award in the documentary category. The film, made over seven years, mixes fiction with documentary to paint a portrait of Afghan boys surviving in a landscape long tormented by war. The awards are announced on 10 December. \ europeanfilmacademy.org

A plan by federal consumer affairs minister Kris Peeters to abolish the waiting period leading up to the January and July sales would be “a death blow” for small retailers, according to NSZ, the independent union for the self-employed.

Publicity for price cuts for clothing, leather goods and shoes are forbidden during the four weeks preceding the start of the biannual sales in order to allow customers to evaluate the price differences.

According to Peeters, the waiting period is in breach of EU rules, and in any case is widely ignored.

According to NSZ, the rule protects small retailers against the major chains, which offer discounts year round.

TV personality Tanja Dexters has been issued with a municipal fine and could face legal action for desecration of a graveyard, after she posted videos on Instagram making fun of the names on gravestones in Lebbeke, East Flanders.

She also opened up a tomb. The family of the deceased complained to the municipality, which imposed a fine for disorderly conduct and retained a lawyer to look into a possible charge of desecration.

Koen De Brabander belgianfootball.be

The Royal Belgian Football Union (KBVB) has a new secretary-general, 20 months after the departure of Steven Martens.

The job has gone to Koen De Brabander.

De Brabander previously served as Chief Operating Officer of the international accountancy company BDO. The two organisations are not worlds apart: De Brabander has carried out audits for Bart Verhaeghe, chair of Club Brugge and now vicechair of KBVB. His predecessor, Martens, came into the headlines last year with reports of lavish spending by the union during the World Cup in Rio in 2014. The KBVB closed 2014 with a loss of €206,000 despite income from the World Cup; Martens resigned and left with a severance package that included €336,000. Gérard Linard, chair of the Frenchspeaking football association, took over the running of the organisation temporarily.

Executive search company Hudson recommended De Brabander from a list of 130 candidates. His appointment was confirmed by the KBVB’s

selection committee. Not a lot is known about him: He was with BDO for 30 years, has an impeccable reputation and speaks Dutch, English and French perfectly.

“As a huge football fan, I’m delighted to take up this function,” De Brabander said in a statement. “My first desire is to get to know all aspects of the game by talking to all the people involved in and around the union, in particular with KBVB board members and colleagues.”

Management, board and steering committee will work together, he said, to draw up an action plan. “Our common goal is to develop a professional policy with precise objectives.

And we’ll achieve those objectives thanks to the motivation and the effort of everyone involved, with full transparency and mutual respect.”

“Koen made a strong impact on us all with his experience and knowledge,” said KBVB chair François De Keersmaecker. “We are convinced we now have a very strong secretary-general of great integrity.” \ Alan Hope

Flanders Today, a weekly English-language newspaper, is an initiative of the Flemish Region and is financially supported by the Flemish authorities.

OFFSIDE Big cheese Belgian CEOs are more likely to make morally dubious decisions than their counterparts north of the border in the Netherlands, according to new research from Vlerick Business School. Women are more ethical than men, and young people less than their older counterparts over the age of 55.

Researcher Xavier Baeten put a number of ethical scenarios to 950 chief executives in the two countries: scenarios like whether they would accept bribes or backhanders, or whether they would switch to a cheaper supplier of

© Courtesy KBVB

© Ingimage

raw materials despite less attention to working conditions.

Baeten said he was surprised at the results. In contradiction to the generally held view that the bosses are fat cats interested only in their own generous remuneration packages, the results show

that CEOs are motivated first by the challenge of the job, then by the advancement of the company and then by the pride in doing the job well. And money didn’t even figure in the top 10.

One notable difference that ethical businesses might consider: top executives who own shares in their own companies are less likely to make ethical decision than those who do not. Only 56% of share-holding bosses made an ethical decision in the scenario presented, compared to 73% who do not own shares. \ AH

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 Bradshaw DEPUTY Editor Sally Tipper CONTRIBUTING Editor Alan Hope sub Editor Bartosz Brzezi´nski Agenda Robyn Boyle, Georgio Valentino Art director Paul Van Dooren Prepress Mediahuis AdPro Contributors Rebecca Benoot, Derek Blyth, Leo Cendrowicz, Emma Davis, Paula Dear, Andy Furniere, Lee Gillette, Diana Goodwin, Clodagh Kinsella, Catherine Kosters, Toon Lambrechts, Ian Mundell, Anja Otte, Tom Peeters, Arthur Rubinstein, Senne Starckx, Christophe Verbiest, Denzil Walton General manager Hans De Loore Publisher Mediahuis NV

Editorial address Gossetlaan 30 - 1702 Groot-Bijgaarden tel 02 467 23 06 editorial@flanderstoday.eu subscriptions tel 03 560 17 49 subscriptions@flanderstoday.eu or order online at www.flanderstoday.eu Advertising 02 467 24 37 advertising@flanderstoday.eu Verantwoordelijke uitgever Hans De Loore

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\ POLITICS

5TH COLUMN A laughing matter

Politics and humour is a tricky combination. People do not always get the joke, and, if they do, they might not appreciate it. Both happened to Theo Francken (N-VA), secretary of migration and asylum, last week.

Francken even fooled BBC News after he posted a picture on Twitter of himself in what looked like an empty space.

The picture suggested bailiffs had taken away his furniture – which BBC duly reported.

Francken’s joke referred to a court decision imposing a penalty for every day he refuses to grant a humanitarian visa to a Syrian family. The family is friendly with a wealthy Belgian family, who vowed to support their Syrian friends while they’re in Belgium.

Despite positive advice by the administration, the secretary of state refused to grant the visa, fearing setting a precedent. Humanitarian visa could become a new legal migration channel, he argued, which will only attract more migrants.

Francken’s view is supported by government parties Open VLD and MR, but the family took the case to court and won. The judge even imposed a penalty should the visa not be granted. A bailiff arrived at Francken’s office last week to collect the penalty of €28,000 but was refused entry. The Twitter picture was meant to demonstrated that Francken is not too worried.

All of this – from refusing the visa, resisting a court order and joking about it – has infuriated many people, from the administration to the Syrian family’s Belgian lawyers.

Some see a parallel with British politics, where some politicians (as well as the press) also brush off magistrates’ decisions.

Things got even worse after a news site published the family’s name and reported that it “supports the Assad regime”.

The family’s lawyers deny this and claim the reports have endangered their lives.

Francken, meanwhile, has announced that he will appeal the court order.

The incident illustrates the difficult position Francken is in. He believes in being in tough on migration, but he has to make decision that seem to go against that, such as providing housing for asylum seekers during last year’s crisis.

So far, he has managed to balance both, but last week he was severely criticised. Having proven his point though, he also received much support.

In Twitter lingo this reads as #ikbentheo – or #iamtheo. \ Anja Otte

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Flanders ‘restores bonds’ with economic mission to Iran Flemish delegation of 70 business leaders meet to stimulate trade Alan Hope Follow Alan on Twitter \ @AlanHopeFT

F

lemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois headed a four-day trade mission to Iran last week, which involved some 70 Flemish business leaders and a delegation from Flanders Investment & Trade (Fit). The mission aimed to restore export ties with the country following the lifting of international sanctions earlier this year.

The mission included representatives from the Flemish, Walloon and Brussels-Capital regions but not the federal government. Iran has the second-largest economy of the Mena countries (Middle East – North Africa) after Saudi Arabia, with a GDP of some €400 billion, largely thanks to oil revenues.

The Iranian population of 80 million is unusually young, but businesses are heavily state-owned, leading to inefficiencies. According to Bourgeois’ office, infrastructure and industry are in need

© Yorick Jansens/BELGA

From left: Flemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois and Belgian ambassador to Iran Francois Delhaye during the economic mission

of modernisation, which offers opportunities to Flemish businesses.

“This is a mission of exploration, in which we want to support Flemish enterprise in estab-

lishing contacts in this new and more accessible market,” said Fit director Claire Tillekaerts. “The interest is not only on the Flemish side. There’s also enthusiasm on the Iranian side.”

The mission included seminars and networking events, bringing the Belgians together with some of Iran’s top economic actors. The governments and Fit focused on Flemish know-how, with particularly strong representation in digital innovation in both the media and medical markets.

“The opening up of this major market after years of isolation offers a unique opportunity to Flemish businesses,” Bourgeois said. “It’s very important for us to restore bonds. Iran is currently Flanders’ 54th export market, worth €381 million. We expect Flemish-Iranian trade relations to reach their previous levels, or even surpass them.”

Health minister rejects proposal to ban sale of alcohol in night shops Federal health minister Maggie De Block has refused to accept a proposed ban on the sale of alcohol in service stations and night shops. Proponents of the measure argue it would make an important contribution to reducing alcohol abuse among young people.

“Such a measure goes too far, I think,” De Block (Open VLD) said in an interview with Het Laatste Nieuws at the weekend. “I’ve no wish to see more bankruptcies.

I’m also not sure why we have to ban alcohol in night shops. It’s handy for people who have no alcohol problem at all to be able to buy something to drink late in the evening.”

Government coalition partner CD&V, which supports the proposed ban, called De Block’s comments “scandalous and irresponsible”.

“If we are to tackle the problem of alcohol abuse properly, we need to have an integrated approach,” said Nathalie Muylle, the party’s spokesperson on alcohol policy. “That means efforts at prevention and control, but also limiting availability. All the specialists agree.”

Open VLD president Gwendolyn Rutten later told VTM News: “We have to address abuse together. But we mustn’t punish everyone who drinks a beer now and again. There’s a balance we have to find.” \ AH

© Courtesy DIV

Flanders calls for shipping treaty with France The government of Flanders is to begin talks with the French and Walloon governments over a new treaty to cover works on the Leie river where it crosses the border between France and Belgium. The stretch of the river, which goes on to pass through Kortrijk and Deinze, runs from Menin in West Flanders to Deûlémont in France, and is also an important passage for inland shipping.

For a long time, the river itself was the border, but works to improve shipping have meant that the bends in the river have been straightened out. The river’s course has now changed so that it crosses from one territory to the other and back again, making a treaty necessary for further works to be carried out and costs to be shared.

The stretch of the river concerned is part of the Seine-Scheldt network, an ambitious inland waterways project aiming to link seven ports: Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Antwerp, Ghent and Zeebrugge in Flanders and Le Havre, Rouen and Dunkirk in France.

“The improvement of international access to Flanders is an important target for our external relations policy,” minister-president Geert Bourgeois said.

He was backed by mobility and public works minister Ben Weyts. “This is a fine crossborder project, which fits in perfectly with European transport policy,” Weyts said.

“This will allow us to shift away from road transport towards the more ecological and safer transport by inland waterways.” \ AH

Human Rights Watch criticises Belgium’s fight against terrorism The fight against terrorism has led the Belgian government to “trample on human rights”, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), with at least 26 documented instances of racism or violence by police.

The 56-page report, “Grounds for Concern: Belgium’s Counterterror Responses to the Paris and Brussels Attacks”, details measures introduced after the Paris attacks a year ago, and further measures introduced after the attacks in Brussels in March. Examples include the ability to detain suspects in isolation for prolonged periods, suspend passports, review telephone and email logs without a court order and revoke citizenship.

It also reports 26 incidences of racial slurs used by police, as well as beatings of suspects. All of the suspects involved were Muslim and all but two of North African origin. Only one person was charged, but the charges were later dropped.

“Governments have a responsibility to protect

© Nicolas Maeterlinck/BELGA

people from attack and to hold those responsible to account,” said Letta Tayler, author of the report.

“But disproportionate responses weaken the rule of law, fuel distrust of the authorities in Muslim communities, and divide society when it needs to unite against groups like Isis.”

In a statement, justice minister Koen Geens said the government’s anti-terrorism policy was “a

tinyurl.com/hrwbelgium

good middle way between heavy-handed action and respect for human rights”.

Federal home affairs minister Jan Jambon met representatives of HRW after the release of the report, a meeting both sides described as “constructive”. The group called for more diversity within the police force, and for the creation of a national human rights institute to take complaints and log instances of police violence.

A spokesperson for Jambon, meanwhile, pointed out that people can make mistakes in stressful situations.

Police representatives said the report spoke of 26 violent incidents, whereas thousands of checks and searches have taken place in the last year.

“Twenty-six is 26 too many,” Rudi Moerman of the NSPV union told VRT radio. “The question is whether there is real evidence, because these claims are being presented as if they were proven facts.” \ AH

\ COVER STORY

november 9, 2016

Sustainable schooldays

Pre-school in Etterbeek is among pilot projects for passive school buildings kaetterbeek.be

continued from page 1

an L-shaped wide-open and welllit space (natural light is a crucial element of passive buildings), with a high ceiling adorned with heavily clad pipes.

A school administrator explains that the pre-schoolers used to be housed in one of the old stone buildings; this is a step up in terms of comfort. Heating and light are automatically adjusted by sensors.

As well as offering sustainability and energy performance, each class now has its own toilets, and the renovation was a chance to improve facilities all round.

The building maintains its temperature thanks to a passive cooling system during the summer, while floor heating, mechanical ventilation with heat recuperation and hot water batteries provide an additional heat-retarding effect in winter.

The building, designed to be like a home for pre-schoolers, also has a role to play from an educational point of view. Students from the adjacent secondary school have already showcased the building during tours for parents as part of their sustainability learning programme.

Now, says school director Katinka Boeykens, having a passive building on the school site “has become normal”, though she admits that there is some excitement among the pre-schoolers when the sensor-operated lights go out if nobody moves for a while.

The project is not without its critics. When the government published a progress report in September, lauding its success, newspaper De Tijd was critical, citing high costs and noting that one building, at a secondary school in Diepenbeek, had to close one hot day and send pupils home.

The passive construction did not allow enough cool air in.

The issue of over-heating was picked up by Crevits as one of the “working points” that needed

© Courtesy KA Etterbeek

Ventilation, lighting and a well-insulated, plant-friendly roof combine to make KA Etterbeek comfortable and energy-efficient: “A good thing for us and for the environment”

ing that before the project, 16% of participants had thought a passive building would be too warm in the summer; 68% now think this is the case. “In the design of an energyefficient school, due attention must be paid to summer ventilation,” the agency said.

Only four participating schools conducted a recommended “extensive and dynamic” simulation during the planning of the school. “The recommendation was not enough,” Agion said. “The inclusion of a mandatory requirement regarding over-heating must

The pilot project for passive schools plays an important role in the transition to energy-efficient buildings more attention, though she added: “Every school in the pilot project has fitted mechanical ventilation. An energy-efficient school with such a system achieves better air quality compared to existing schools or new schools without such a system.”

Agion, the government’s agency for infrastructure in education in Flanders, carried out a study show-

therefore be advised for possible new passive schools.”

According to the director at KA Etterbeek, the problem can be resolved. Although over-heating in the summer was initially a problem, she said that had been resolved a long time ago.

“We have had lots of checks done, and that is now OK,” she says. “In any case, when there is a heat wave,

there is a heat wave for everyone.”

The government said that from looking at projects in other countries, it had initially expected the average cost of constructing a passive school to be 12% higher than that of normal school. In practice, one school had a construction cost that was only 1% higher, while KA Etterbeek was a shining example of how the costs can be kept low. Agion’s report shows that rewards, in the form of lower energy bills, can quickly compensate construction costs.

“Experience shows that, provided there is a good design from the start, the cost can be reduced,” says Agion, noting that the lowest costs per square metre of completed projects, notably the one in Etterbeek, were lower because the initial design had been based on passive strategies.

“Projects such as Etterbeek show that by applying simple and smart strategies, the cost can be decreased considerably. Despite their limited cost, they get very good results both in energy and in the comfort of the building and the architectural quality.”

The government has recently announced a string of measures related to the renovation and rebuilding of schools across the region. They include a €50 million subsidy package for schools in need of an upgrade and a further

€8 million that would allow schools and higher education institutions to introduce climatefriendly measures.

Schools, colleges and universities have to submit their projects for energy savings and improved insulation to win a 50% subsidy towards the cost. The government is also working on concrete measures regarding climate change, sustainability and energy efficiency that will be presented in the framework of the Flanders Climate Action plan at the region’s second climate summit at the end of the year.

Crevits says that the passive school pilot project has provided important examples for how to improve the energy efficiency of buildings.

Belgium, as a member of the EU, must generate 20% of its energy from renewables such as solar

power and heat pumps by 2020, and cut its energy use by 20%.

Energy-efficient buildings are an important part of achieving this goal. The EU has set a target for all new buildings to be nearly zeroenergy by 2020.

“The pilot project for passive schools plays an important role in the transition to energy-efficient buildings,” says Crevits.

“These first interim results from the completed passive schools are positive and can serve as a basis for future policy in the case of energy efficiency and sustainability in school buildings.”

In Etterbeek, director Boeykens points to the multiple advantages for the environment and education. “This is indeed a good project.

It’s a good thing for us and also for the environment.”

\5

\ BUSINESS

week in business Air Wow Air The Icelandic low-cost airline will begin flying out of Brussels Airport next June, going to six US cities: New York, Baltimore, Boston, Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The flights all involve a stopover in Reykjavik.

Chocolate Barry Callebaut Flemish executive Patrick De Maeseneire has been appointed president of the board of Swiss chocolate maker Barry Callebaut. De Maeseneire was CEO of Callebaut from 2002 to 2009.

Amusement parks Océade Water park Océade at Heizel in Brussels will close in January to allow the development of the Neo leisure and shopping centre. The decision comes despite Océade’s offers to adapt its infrastructure to fit the new development and the success of the attraction: Océade welcomed 250,000 visitors in 2015.

Media Twitter Social networking site Twitter is closing its Brussels office, less than two years after opening. The site employs five people and has been undergoing financial difficulties, including being unable to find a buyer.

Pharmaceuticals Janssen Janssen Pharma has named Stef Heylen as its new CEO. Heylen was formerly in charge of research and development.

Transport NMBS National rail authority NMBS plans to scrap 300 jobs by 2020, De Tijd reports, bringing the workforce to 16,955 – fewer than in its original proposal announced last year. The job losses will come mainly among counter staff, as more and more tickets are sold online and from machines.

Transport Bombardier The train and tram constructor, which has a plant in Bruges, is taking a complaint to the Council of State after Flemish public transport authority De Lijn opted to award a €320 million contract to Spanish constructor CAF for 146 new trams.

\6

Ghent and Zeeland ports announce plan to merge

Merger will create another superport for the Low Countries Alan Hope Follow Alan on Twitter \ @AlanHopeFT

T

he port of Ghent has plans to merge with the two ports in Zeeland in the Netherlands, which will put the new resulting port into the top 10 in Europe, according to Omroep Zeeland. Sources told the local broadcaster that an official announcement was due to be made when the Dutch and Flemish governments met for a summit this week, as Flanders Today went to press.

At present the port of Ghent ranks 47th in Europe for tonnage handled per year, while the two ports in Zeeland – Vlissingen and Terneuzen, known together as Zeeland Seaports – stand in 35th place. Terneuzen is linked to

© Friedrich Tellberg/Wikimedia

Ghent by a canal (pictured).

The merged entity would be in eighth place in Europe, said Daan Schalck, director of the port of

Ghent. According to Terneuzen mayor Jan Lonink, a basis has already been laid to allow the ports to take a decisive step

forwards. “All of the parties are in favour,” he said.

The merger has been studied by the management consultant McKinsey, resulting in a positive opinion. The new port entity will be able to cut costs by joining forces, it said, while carving out an identity for a bio-based economy and added value.

“The ports already co-operate,” commented transport economist Thierry Vanelselander of Antwerp University on Radio 1.

“The current CEOs work very well together. Above all, you get the feeling that Flanders and the Netherlands are keen to co-operate. Both sides see the need to do something with these two ports.”

Court rejects plan to save Emperor producer from bankruptcy Headlines in the summer of 2015 announced that the film Emperor was shooting several scenes in Ghent, where Adrien Brody could be seen on the Sint-Michiels bridge playing Charles V. Now, the film’s release appears to be in danger as Antwerpbased producers Corsan approach the brink of bankruptcy.

Last week, the commercial court in Antwerp threw out a plan for reorganisation submitted by Corsan, which means that temporary protection from creditors is dropped, leaving the company virtually no other option than to file for bankruptcy.

At issue is the vote of one of the company’s creditors, Wildkite.

It voted on the reorganisation plan as a creditor but is actually a subsidiary of Corsan. Also, one of the conditions of the reorganisation involved a document from one investor ready to provide €2 million to see the film Emperor completed. But the document submitted was not signed, and it was deemed invalid.

The commercial court said the reorganisation plan was “neither clear nor credible”.

Corsan raised some €200 million from small investors via Belgium’s tax shelter system for investment in film projects. A declaration of bankruptcy could mean those investors escape demands from the tax authorities.

The court’s decision could be appealed, but at this stage that seems unlikely to succeed; in the meantime, any creditor or third party could call for a judgement of bankruptcy. \ AH

© Ingimage

Restaurant terraces to disappear from Brussels’ pedestrian centre The Brussels-City council has ordered the removal of all restaurant terraces within the pedestrian streets in the historic city centre, including Beenhouwersstraat, Korte Beenhouwersstraat and Greepstraat. The measure came into effect on 1 November.

For many years, the streets in the area have been famed – some say notorious – for the restaurant tables packed into the narrow streets and the waiters intent on attracting customers. For some years now, it has been illegal to tout for customers; it does still happen, albeit in

a less aggressive manner than before.

The city council has decided only to allow terraces in the summer, as the terraces hinder the access of emergency vehicles, according to councillor for business Marion Lemesre. For the same reason, Brussels-City mayor Yvan Mayeur banned all awnings earlier this year.

“We do not agree with this decision, but we have to respect it,” said Renato Serra, head of the organisation of local businesses. “If not, there are fines of €250 to €100,000 hanging over us.” \ AH

Network managers do not have to supply gas to all homes Flemish energy minister Bart Tommelein plans to scrap the rule that forces gas network management companies to ensure that 95% of all homes in rural areas and 99% in urban areas can be connected to the gas network. A study by the Flemish energy regulator Vreg said the system was not cost-effective.

“It makes no sense to have an obligation for houses to be connected to the natural gas network at the same time as we’re trying to get away from fossil fuels,” Tommelein said. “With this change, we’re

going all-in for renewable energy, as well as making sure our energy bills don’t go through the roof.”

The old rule was a consequence of the oil crisis of the 1970s, when Belgium decided to make it easy to switch from oil-fired heating to gas. Since then, the network has spread to cover the whole country, but at a cost. In more remote areas, for example, repairs and maintenance to hundreds of metres of pipeline can be expensive, while serving only a few houses.

With the removal of the obligation on the network managers, the cost

of laying down a connection will fall more on the residents, encouraging them to consider other options, said Tommelein.

“Providing a gas connection for remote housing would cost the management companies a lot of money, which would then be passed along in energy bills,” he said. “For someone living out of the way, a gas connection is usually not cost-effective. You’d be better off going for sustainable alternatives like a water-pump, solar boiler, solar panels or linking to a heating network.” \ AH

\ INNOVATION

november 9, 2016

Energy unplugged

week in innovation

Engineer develops solar kiosk to power remote African communities Senne Starckx More articles by Senne \ flanderstoday.eu

SOLARZONDERGRENZEN.BE

T

en years ago, Bert Bernolet travelled to a remote village in Togo, one of the poorest countries in Africa, to install a solar panel in a local hospital. The panel proved a great success; it was just what the community needed.

When the 25-year-old engineer from West Flanders realised what a difference such a small contribution could make, he launched the non-profit organisation Solar Zonder Grenzen (Solar Without Borders).

With the help of a supportive personal network and two local solar panel companies for which he used to work, the young engineer came up with a start-up budget and a few thousand solar cells.

Initially, Bernolet and his team of volunteers would just send containers of solar panels, water boilers and other items to developing countries like Togo, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Guatemala, Tajikistan and Mongolia.

“But things need repaired, and without spare parts or experts who can perform maintenance, these projects had no future,” he says.

“So we had to work out a longer-term strategy, including a business model that ensured that the local population would also be actively involved in the projects.”

That’s when Solar Zonder Grenzen stopped merely shipping goods and started merging development aid with sustainability. The fruit of that marriage is the solar (or energy) kiosk.

Today the non-profit can boast of having built no less than 180 of these small, decentralised solar plants that deliver electricity to more than 40,000 people, mainly in Togo and Benin.

A solar kiosk uses photovoltaic (PV) panels on its roof to turn sunlight into electricity.

Ideally, the kiosks are installed in rural areas that lack access to an electrical grid; villagers visit the kiosk to recharge their devices, such as lamps, phones and batteries.

“We gave away the first solar panels,” Bernolet says. “But that didn’t turn out to be a good strategy, because they didn’t earmark funds to maintain the system. So instead, we decided to train locals in running small businesses that manage the use and maintenance of the solar kiosks.”

The kiosk has met with a warm welcome and has become more popular than some other initiatives that aim to deliver reliable power and light to remote communities in Africa. So Bernolet’s organisation recently announced a new innovation.

© Courtesy Solar Zonder Grenzen

Rechargable lamps are sustainable and cost-effective for villages not hooked up to an electrical grid

Together with Ingenium, the engineering office in Bruges, he has recently developed the “smart kiosk”. Now, when local people want to buy electricity, they only have to send a text message; no need for cash.

To attract investors and co-ordinate the new

ment affordable to most people in the village.

“We want to transfer knowledge,” says Bernolet. “Installing one solar panel on the roof of a school is certainly nice, but you contribute more if you teach the local people to produce their own solar lamps. And it’s easier than it seems – you can learn all this in less than two weeks.”

The lack of reliable and easily accessible electrical grids hinders growth in many African countries – especially in remote regions. So why not focus on building a “mini grid” around the solar kiosk?

“We’re working on this,” says Bernolet. “We have already seen that people in Togo and Benin are extending wires from the kiosk to their homes. So we know there’s a need for that.”

Bernolet’s work in Africa and elsewhere has caught the attention of fellow entrepreneurs in Flanders. This year alone, he became the recipient of the West Flemish Young Entrepreneur of the Year award and received a substantial financial injection from a group of Flemish investors, the Business Angels Network (Ban Vlaanderen).

“Energy Kiosks is both a unique investment opportunity and a display of how risk capital and entrepreneurship can ensure employment, welfare and wealth in developing regions,” said Reginald Vossen, the general director of Ban Vlaanderen.

Not everything that Bernolet does is aimed at the impoverished communities of the devel-

Installing one solar panel on the roof of a school is nice, but you contribute more if you teach the local people to produce their own solar lamps project, Bernolet founded the company Energy Kiosks. In Togo – where the whole story began a decade ago – the co-operative works with a subsidiary company Solergie.

Solergie produces its own solar panels, rechargeable lamps and electrical controls, and sells them at cost price; it makes profit from recharging them. This makes the equip-

oping South. In Flanders, Solar Zonder Grenzen rents mobile cocktail bars, called Bar Solar, which depend entirely on sun-powered batteries.

So while the kiosks bring basic comfort to rural communities in Africa, the bars can power up a party in even the most remote back gardens in Flanders.

Maggot wound treatment allowed again in Belgium wondzorgcentrum.be

Maggot therapy, in which maggots are used to heal wounds that are difficult to clean, is once again allowed in Belgium. In 2011, Belgium’s federal agency for medicine and health products stopped recognising maggot therapy because of problems with the standardisation of the method. But the therapy is now allowed as a non-recognised treatment, meaning costs will not be refunded.

The therapy must always be prescribed by a doctor, and the maggots have to be delivered to a pharmacy. A maggot treatment costs between €150 and €300.

According to Flanders’ Wound Care Centre, Maggots are particularly useful in cleaning the wounds of diabetics, elderly people and

others who have difficulty healing, as well as in patients for whom antibiotics no longer work.

“The maggots can prevent amputation of limbs,” said Kristof Baillu of the Wound Care Centre “because they can remove dead tissue from wounds very quickly.”

For a treatment, about 50 maggots of the common green bottle fly are put in a sort of tea bag and placed on the wound. The insects eat the dead tissue and also spread an enzyme that has a dissolving effect.

It takes an average of four days before the dead tissue is gone. With antibiotics, this sometimes can take weeks.

The Wound Care Centre will evaluate the interest in the therapy and then consider whether it

© Ingimage

should submit a request to allow the treatment be registered as recognised so the costs can be refunded. \ Andy Furniere

Scientists obtain energy from sewage Researchers at Ghent University (UGent) have found that sewage contains a source of energy that can be exploited by deploying “hungry” bacteria. Domestic sewage contains organic substances, which are harmful to the environment but do contain energy. The researchers used bacteria to extract that energy from the organic substances. Before they deployed them, the researchers starved the bacteria for a period. “The wastewater is then briefly brought into contact with the bacteria, which, because they’re hungry, gobble the organic matter without digesting it,” explained UGent professor Nico Boon. “This enables us to reap the undigested materials for energy recovery and highquality materials.” The finding could lead to development of an energy-neutral water purification process.

New way to fight hospital infections Researchers at the Flemish life sciences research institute VIB, the University of Leuven and the Université Catholique de Louvain have found that certain drugs used to fight fungal infections help make a form of antibiotics very effective against Staphylococcus aureus biofilms, a group of organisms that are the major cause of hospital infections. The Flemish researchers found that caspofungin, used to treat severe fungal infections such as candida, enhances the anti-biofilm activity of certain antibiotics, like fluoroquinolones. The results open up new pathways to help patients, such as those who use catheters to administer drugs intravenously or those with an implanted medical device like a pacemaker.

UGent examines beached shark Scientists from Ghent University’s veterinary medicine department are doing an autopsy on a basking shark that was found dead on the coast of De Panne last month.

According to the scientists, this is an unique opportunity to carry out both an external examination and a dissection of a basking shark. The basking shark reaches an average five metres long and weighs about 600 kilograms. They are an endangered species, and there is a complete ban on catching them. The beached shark, a young male, probably got disorientated between sandbanks on a treacherous strip of coast at De Panne. \ AF

\7

\ EDUCATION

november 9, 2016

Learning for a new age

week in education €5m to improve Limburg’s education

Flanders weighs pros and cons of entrepreneurial learning Emma Portier Davis More articles by Emma \ flanderstoday.eu

BANTANI.COM

I

n a fast-changing world, pupils who spend most of their school days learning by rote while seated behind desks will not be equipped with the right skills, say proponents of entrepreneurial learning. Rather, they should be learning more “soft skills”, like how to spot opportunities, develop ideas, engage in ethical and sustainable thinking, and stay motivated.

The government of Flanders already has a plan in place on entrepreneurship in education, but it has been working away at another one that it hopes will give entrepreneurial learning a bigger role in schools. The plan is in keeping with the government’s broader policy to develop entrepreneurship in the region and boost youngsters’ employability, thereby helping them better contribute to the labour market.

At the same time, the European Union has highlighted the need for entrepreneurial learning in its latest skills agenda published in June. Giving entrepreneurial learning such a high profile highlights how important it is for member states to get this relatively young education theme going – and to get it right.

According to a recent report by the European Commission’s education agency Euridyce, less than 23% of EU residents said they had engaged in entrepreneurial learning at school, defined as turning ideas into action and developing a project. Another study showed that a large proportion of 15-year-olds lack basic problem-solving skills.

“Learners of all ages need entrepreneurial skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and action planning,” says Elin McCallum of Bantani Education. “These are skills that are important for being an active citizen, setting up a community activity or simply being more employable.”

© Courtesy Bantani Education

The Brussels-based start-up has been working on projects and collaborations for entrepreneurial learning policy and practice.

“Entrepreneurial skills and mindset,” McCallum continues, “are often recognisable as skills that everyone needs for life and work, not only for starting an enterprise.”

According to Euridyce, Flanders deserves a pat on the back for its

approach is to be given a wider anchor, so that it does not disappear as soon as the teacher or lecturer concerned takes on another job.”

The plan includes a proposal for the development of a network to facilitate knowledge-sharing between schools, in addition to subsidies for activities that allow students to engage in entrepreneurial learning. The government said it would

Learners of all ages need entrepreneurial skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and action planning use of entrepreneurial learning in general education. It noted that Flemish schools already offer practical, entrepreneurial experience as part of the regular curriculum and that Flanders as a region is trying to adopt a more strategic approach to entrepreneurial learning.

According to the government, the goal of its latest draft plan for 20152019 is to stimulate entrepreneurial education, and inspire and support educational providers. “There have been many teachers and lecturers working on entrepreneurial education,” the plans reads. “Their

also seek clarification of the role of entrepreneurial learning in the on-going parliamentary debate on secondary school graduation requirements (eindtermen).

Flanders’ approach to entrepreneurial education is not without its critics. The education board, Vlor, said in response to an earlier draft that it did not want entrepreneurial learning to be obligatory and that it did not see the need for an additional budget to offer schools that want to develop a vision for entrepreneurial learning.

Vlor also called for a broad defi-

Q&A

understanding needed among all staff and stakeholders.”

As for whether schools should adopt it as a mainstream educational approach, McCallum says: “As a mother, I want my children to have entrepreneurial skills, such as creativity and resilience, to adapt to a life that may be a lot different from mine. This is so important, and I hope it becomes compulsory for every teacher to help young people learn these skills through exciting and innovative learning experiences.”

SCHOLIERENKOEPEL.BE

I have not experienced discrimination to a large extent, but I often felt like I had to prove myself more than other students. In primary school, there was a teacher who did not have any trust in my capacities because of my migration background, but VSK has been battling discrimination for a long time, and I am contributing to this fight.

Céline Ibe, 17, is the first chair of secondary school student organisation Vlamse Scholierene Koepel (VSK) to be following her studies from home Why did you decide to finish your secondary studies from home?

I felt that the school environment was not addressing my specific needs. I lost motivation because the system did not give me enough flexibility to follow my personal interests. Frequently, the lessons also lacked depth, with no time to link topics to current events or to have discussions. I shared my concerns at the school, and even moved to another, but to no avail.

nition of entrepreneurial learning to be maintained and said that, in general, it was not convinced it would be “desirable or feasible to pursue entrepreneurial skills for all students” and that it “sees no added value in the development of a professional qualification for ‘entrepreneur’.”

Those in favour of adopting entrepreneurial learning and making it mainstream in schools have expressed concern about the lack of additional money for the plan and the fact that there is no obligation for educators in Flanders to implement it. Across Europe, few countries have an additional budget for entrepreneurial learning, but, according to the Euridyce report, “stable and comprehensive funds” need to be developed.

“The strategy asks for active engagement from educational institutions,” says McCallum. “Without this the vision cannot be achieved.

It is crucial that school leaders are supported in building a common

Would you recommend homeschooling to other students?

It works for me, but it wouldn’t be a solution for everyone. You gain independence and freedom, but that also means you need a lot of self-discipline to prepare for the exams to earn a diploma before the Exams Commission.

I’m not here to argue in favour of home education, but it is my responsibility to explain what that entails.

I am motivated by the fact that I can arrange my agenda more flexibly and decide if I want to explore

certain topics in more depth. Now, for example, I have more time for philosophy lessons.

Your father is from Nigeria. How has your migration background influenced your education?

Do you know what you want to do after graduation?

Not really, although I’m interested in European Studies. I also enjoy writing and won this year’s Junior Journalist competition, organised by the culture network Davidsfonds. But I’m not sure if I want to write for a living. \ Interview by Andy Furniere

The social investment company Limburg Sterk Merk is investing €5 million to solve problems in the local education sector, at the request of the province’s governor, Herman Reynders.

The money will be used to tackle issues such as language deficit among toddlers, lack of interest in technical education, the number of teenagers leaving school without a diploma and difficulties in the transition to higher education. The local municipalities, the provincial government and schools will create an action plan with concrete suggestions on how to deal with the problems, which will be presented and discussed at a convention on 12 December. The €5 million was originally meant for the creation of artworks that would be installed next to the province’s three high-speed tram lines.

Antwerp province aids migrant students The Province of Antwerp has allocated €100,000 to Karel de Grote University College, to develop initiatives that help students with a migrant background succeed in higher education. Integrating such students is one of the largest challenges facing higher education institutions in Antwerp, said the college’s director Veerle Hendrickx.

With the extra funding, the college mainly wants to employ people who will ensure that these students feel at home at college. Coaches will help them improve their organisational and study skills and increase their motivation. Since the beginning of this academic year, the college has a student council exclusively for students with a migration background.

Tutors more popular than ever More and more families are hiring tutors for their children outside of school. The Flemish education sector is worried about the trend. One sign of the evolution is the sharp increase of those offering tutoring lessons on ad sites like 2dehands.be and Kapaza. The tutors are often teachers looking to earn additional income, though there are also more commercial tutoring services available now. Educators recognise that parents only want the best for their children but are worried that pupils risk not getting enough down time, which they say can affect the learning process. Some schools have stopped allowing their teachers to provide tutoring to students from their own school. \ AF

\9

\ LIVING

week in activities Passendale memorial ceremony Commemorating the day that Canadian troops recaptured the village, ending one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War, the ceremony begins with a reflection at Crest Farm Canadian Memorial and continues with a candlelight procession ending at the village church. An outdoor reception and concert follow. 10 November 16.00-19.30, Crest Farm, Canadalaan, Passendale; free \ passchendaele.be

Public brewing day For fans of traditional lambics, this annual event is unmissable. Cantillon, the last remaining lambic brewery in Brussels, welcomes visitors to watch the brewing process from beginning to end. Admission includes a guided tour and drink. For the early birds, there will be free coffee and croissants. 10 November 7.00-17.00, Gheudestraat 56, Brussels; €8 \ cantillon.be

Arrival of the Sint For Flemish children, the feast of Sinterklaas on 6 December is a much bigger deal than Christmas. Every year, the Sint arrives in Antwerp by steamboat, riding a white horse and accompanied by his helpers.

He then travels in procession to the Grote Markt, where the festivities continue. 12 November 13.30, Steenplein, Antwerp; free \ visitantwerpen.be

Champagne Weekend Coastal town Middelkerke celebrates its ties with sister city Epernay, in the French Champagne region, with a weekend of tastings and special menus in local restaurants. 10-13 November, tastings at Casino Middelkerke, Zeedijk; €5 each

\ middelkerke.be

Brussels Tattoo Convention Itching for some new ink?

Then Tour & Taxis is the place to be this weekend, with 350 of the best international tattoo artists, plus contests, burlesque shows, barber shops, bands, merchandise and everything else you need for your rock’n’roll lifestyle.

Booking for tattoo appointments recommended. 11-13 November, Havenlaan 86C, Brussels; €15-€25 \ brusselstattooconvention.be

\ 10

Time of our lives

Ghent festival seeks concrete answers to abstract questions Daan Bauwens More articles by Daan \ flanderstoday.eu

HOWDOWESAVETIME.ORG

M

ost of us are out of time.

The reason? There is no linear connection between memory and time. When we turn 80, the point that feels like the middle of our lives may be 60 years ago.

For those who want to explore this and happier perceptions of time, Ghent city laboratory Timelab is organising How Do We Save Time, a series of lectures, exhibitions and screenings, while 12 international artists will gather at Timelab’s premises to create new work exploring the concept of time.

“Timelab tries to formulate solutions for problems of the future,” explains organiser Laura Herman.

“We work with citizens, scientists and artists to analyse current systems and to imagine new models for things such as living together, constructing or growing food. The question of how to save time is a very abstract one, but with a lot of concrete answers.”

Today, notions of time scarcity are ubiquitous, she says, and everything happens in a hurry. “We work ourselves to death. Do we know ways to solve this? How can artists’ approaches to the subject inspire us in thinking of new models?”

As a fully planned revolution in organising our time is only possible in the long term, lectures by national and international experts will highlight sub-problems that might be easier to solve.

For example, American artist and writer Staci Bu Shea and New Yorkbased conceptual artist Constantina Zavitsanos will explain how the normal duration of activities is, by default, defined by fully abled, heterosexual minds and bodies.

Planning and waiting become an inherent part of the lives of every-

The American documentary Containment shows government plans to mark radioactive dump sites so future generations will know when they’re safe

one who doesn’t fit these societal standards.

Containment, a documentary by Harvard professors Peter Galison and Robb Moss, takes another look at time, showing government plans to build monuments over radioactive dump sites around the world.

These will serve as a warning for generations of the next 10,000 years, until the radioactive toxicity reaches a safe level.

The screening will be followed by a talk by Maarten Van Geet, co-ordinator of the research division of long-term management at Niras, Belgium’s national institute for radioactive waste.

Also on the issue of how we rarely think outside the scope of our own lives is a talk by Nature reporter Ewen Callaway. He will explain how cells belonging to the body of

Baltimore woman Henrietta Lacks, taken from a cervical tumour more than half a century ago, were grown, spread and sold, and are still being used all over the world for research.

Lacks was never asked for permission, and the case shows how our cells and DNA can live on after our deaths, even without our permission.

Leading us back to the big picture of how to manage time in a healthier way, Flemish author Thomas Decreus will talk about radical but logical solutions to the world’s climate and stress woes, namely the introduction of the basic income and the 18-hour working week.

Belgian neuroscientist Pierre-Alexandre Klein will present “Hack-

18-27 November

istan”, a new model in which professionals work together to use existing solutions to world problems. In the meantime, South African artist Chris Swart will experiment with the time needed between an object’s conception and completion.

Sarah Kazmi from Pakistan will explore the bonds between food, culture and time, while Spaniard Alexandra Laudo will work on performative speeches on standardisation and the history of clocks.

Together with the work of nine other artists, these projects will be shown to the public at the end of the festival.

For those who have the time to spare, of course.

Timelab

Brusselsepoortstraat 97, Ghent

BITE Around the world in 80 coffees: Antwerp welcomes chill new cafe FACEBOOK.COM/BUTCHERSCOFFEE

With a minimalist menu and Instagram-worthy interior, Butchers Coffee has all the makings of the next big trendy coffee house. But, say barista buddies Dave Haesen and Paolo Guffens, being trendy is a long way from their goal.

The pair have transformed an old butcher’s shop just off Antwerp’s Leien into a not-so-regular coffee Mecca. The founders met at Caffènation, Antwerp’s original coffee hotspot. Before working there, each had travelled the globe in search of the perfect brew.

Guffens’ passport includes entries for New Zealand, Canada and the UK. “I would just email and ask for a job wherever there was advanced speciality coffee to be found,” he

© Jens Mollenvanger

Dave Haesen (left) and Paolo Guffens know their joe

explains, “Sometimes I stayed weeks, sometimes months or even a year.”

It was a time when barista culture in Belgium was close to non-existent. This is also what led Haesen abroad. “I learned from the best in Melbourne, coffee capital of the world, and took this experience

with me,” he says. “I think that’s our strength – that we gathered our knowledge in so many places.”

Back in Belgium, the duo had to adapt to local tastes. “Belgians like to keep it simple,” Haesen says. “A long black coffee with milk and sugar, nothing fancy.”

Both snicker at the concept of a “regular” coffee. Haesen: “Ordering a regular coffee is like asking for a regular bread at the baker’s. You like your coffee black? Then there’s Americano, espresso or filter coffee.

You prefer milk? Have a cappuccino.

We’re keen on educating people. The only problem might be getting us to shut up about it!”

The baristas use Caffènation coffee and have just bought 60 kilograms

of green beans to be roasted as the first Butchers blend. Customers planning a trip abroad receive plenty of tips and in return are asked to bring home a souvenir coffee bag, which serves as a weekly guest blend. “The custom has become so popular that at one point we had 13 guest blends,” Guffens says.

With all this talk about brews and beans, one almost forgets the interior: a clean space full of elements that reveal its former use. The coldroom has been repurposed as a chill spot – no pun intended – and the wooden chopping block doubles as a bar. Fittingly so, because when it comes to coffee, these boys are killing it. \ Catherine Kosters

november 9, 2016

Bite into history

Week van de Smaak rekindles bygone culinary practices in hundreds of activities Diana Goodwin More articles by Diana \ flanderstoday.eu

F

arm-to-table, fermented foods, canning and preserving – practices that were once considered old-fashioned are now all the rage in the culinary world. This year’s Week van de Smaak (Week of Taste), the annual food festival in Flanders and Brussels, tunes into the trend with its theme “The Tastes of Old”.

The festival’s events – staged in nearly every municipality – celebrate foods of the past, whether historical, mythological, imaginary or nostalgic. The offerings are widely varied, from lectures and workshops to gastronomic multicourse menus.

Events are individually organised by libraries, cultural institutions, community centres and other local organisations. In Leuven, the festival is getting a city-wide treatment, with dozens of businesses, restaurants and pop-ups offering promotions and special activities.

Many of the events associated with the festival – which, despite the name, continues for 11 days – focus on cherished Flemish culinary traditions. A baking workshop in Tervuren takes a page from grandma’s recipe book to cook up cakes and waffles. In Haren, a two– day festival celebrates witloof with an exhibition, market and pop-up café.

And a speculaas festival in Hasselt features the local variety of this ubiquitous biscuit with freshly

baked treats.

But there are also opportunities to dig a little deeper into culinary history and learn some new and surprising skills. Flanders’ own “food archaeologist”, Jeroen van Vaerenbergh, introduces three dishes that tell the story of bygone daily life in one workshop.

Another workshop in Evere focuses on fancy ice cream recipes from a time when it was a speciality for the tables of the wealthy, and not the daily treat we now take for granted.

You can learn about fermentation during a workshop hosted by the first natural-foods producer in Flanders, and take home a kombucha or kefir starter. Kombucha, a fermented drink made from tea, and kefir, obtained from fermented milk, are both traditionally consumed in Russia and Central Asia.

Fermented foods in general are thought to confer many health benefits such as improved digestion and are gaining in popularity.

Special events for children include an Alice in Wonderland-themed tea party and activities based on both George’s Marvellous Medicine and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Roald Dahl’s birth. Parents and kids can also join in familyoriented cooking workshops.

For cookbook addicts, there are opportunities to meet the authors of recent publications, such as

WEEKVANDESMAAK.BE

Events across Flanders celebrate foods of the past, whether historical, mythological or nostalgic

Pride and Pudding by Regula Ysewijn, and Taste: A History in 120 Recipes by Annelies van Wittenberghe. Creosa Govaers, aromatherapy expert and author of Cooking with Herbs, serves up a seasonal menu in Genk, complete with takehome recipes.

This year’s festival includes a public contest. Over the past year, five nursing home residents were interviewed, reminiscing about their fondest memories of nowforgotten foods. Now professional

and amateur chefs are challenged to come up with ideas for new recipes, products and food concepts based on those memories.

Week van de Smaak has a special kick-off on 8 November at the Flemish House of Food in Roeselare, with a programme built around five contemporary writers and memories of their favourite foods. Each of the authors will

10-20 November

read aloud from their memoirs, while students from culinary and art schools will present their interpretations of the texts.

Week van de Smaak is an initiative of Vol-au-Vent, a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting food culture as a means of social understanding. Many events require a fee or advance registration.

Across Flanders and Brussels

Guide explores the history of the Flemish parliament’s back yard tinyurl.com/opstaptussentekens

The Flemish parliament sits in a Brussels neighbourhood that most people only visit to hear pop stars perform at the Koninklijk Circus.

So parliament recently came up with the inspired idea of publishing a short guide to the streets and squares in its back yard – Op stap tussen tekens (On Foot Between Letters).

“Formerly a district populated by washerwomen and workers, artists and models, wealthy citizens and absinthe drinkers, it is now a part of town where you bump into members of parliament and politicians in and around Vrijheidsplein,” explains parliament speaker Jan Peumans.

The guide, which can be downloaded free of charge, was written

by Eric Min, a Flemish writer and historian best known for the book De eeuw van Brussel (The Century of Brussels). The guide is a more modest project that aims to take the reader on a literary and artistic walk around Onze-Lieve-Vrouwter-Sneeuwwijk, or Our Lady of the

Vrijheidsplein in the late 19th century

Snow Quarter, which is home not only to the Flemish parliament, but the Walloon and federal parliament buildings.

Named after an old chapel that was demolished in the 19th century, Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-terSneeuwwijk was once a notorious slum. The old houses were eventually torn down to create a neigh-

bourhood for the city’s wealthiest residents, including the fabulously rich Edouard Empain, whose bank financed the construction of the Paris metro.

It would have been interesting to know more about Empain (whose mansion now stands empty on Vrijheidsplein), but Min prefers to focus attention on the cultural life

that emerged in the shadow of the Belgian parliament.

He finds the residents of this chic neighbourhood adopting 19th-century French trends, such as the creation of panoramic viewpoints where the city could be admired. While visitors to Paris could climb the Eiffel Tower, tourists in Brussels could visit the parliament quarter to stand on Panoramaplein.

Min also highlights the passion for Japanese art that swept through the district in the 19th century, influencing artists such as Fernand Khnopff and the Art Nouveau architect Paul Hankar.

The guide often describes fabulous buildings that are no longer standing, such as the exotic Eden theatre, where customers sat in a winter garden surrounded by grottos and palm trees, and the royal swimming pool, which became a theatre in the winter months.

The booklet is illustrated with some striking archive photographs showing the neighbour-

hood in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was the summit of elegance.

The author displays an intimate knowledge of the city’s cultural life, but creates the impression that this quarter was a monolingual French neighbourhood – almost an outpost of Paris. He might be right to devote several pages to the French literary giant Victor Hugo, who lived for several years in a house that still stands on Barricadenplein. But is it true that that all the cultural and social life was carried on in French?

It might have been a more interesting book if the parliament could have persuaded the author to identify artists and writers from the north of the country who played a part in the district’s cultural life.

Yet the guide is still a useful companion for visitors to the Flemish parliament who want to take a walk through the neighbourhood.

They will discover an interesting urban area that remains under the tourist radar. \ Derek Blyth

\ 11

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done in Flanders?

If you can’t think of anything at all, you’d better check out our new e-book

Quirky Flanders offers 20 unexpected – or downright odd – activities or sights across the region you can get busy taking part in right now

Visit the Flanders Today website to download the e-book now! For free!

www.flanderstoday.eu

\ ARTS

november 9, 2016

African art reimagined

week in arts & CULTURE War Heritage Institute for Brussels

Exhibition at Bozar showcases hidden gems of Congolese art Ian Mundell More articles by Ian \ flanderstoday.eu

BOZAR.BE

The Congo Art Works exhibition in Brussels goes beyond the familiar masks and gourds amassed by European collectors, putting the focus on art made for Congolese people.

W

hat does African art mean to you? Perhaps you think of statues or masks of the sort found in ethnological museums, or maybe you think of gourds and fabrics decorated with complex patterns.

A current exhibition at Bozar in Brussels wants you to think again.

Congo Art Works brings some of these more traditional African art forms together with paintings produced in the Congo from the 1920s to the present day, and invites us to see the connections. It also reminds us that these paintings may be more Congolese than the masks and gourds produced specifically for European collectors.

The majority of the paintings come from a remarkable archive gathered by the historian Bogumil Jewsiewicki and his colleagues between 1968 and 2012. Comprising some 2,000 works, the paintings and documentation about their origins were donated in 2013 to the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren.

Jewsiewicki’s aim was to collect paintings that gave an insight into the visual culture and imagination of the Congolese people. He tried not to make aesthetic judgements himself.

“Some of the works are quite outstanding, while for others the aesthetic quality is rather poor,” says Bambi Ceuppens, a researcher at the Museum for Central Africa, who curated the show with Congolese-born photographer Sammy Baloji, who splits his time between Brussels and Lubumbashi.

But Jewsiewicki was also careful to buy paintings made for Congolese customers rather than Europeans, so the collection presents a unique insight into local tastes and interests. “It’s as if, all of a sudden, you come face to face with 40 years of the collective memory of a country, and I found that very touching,” recalls Ceuppens of seeing the whole collection for the first time.

These “popular” painters tended to have no formal training, but came from the same middle-class background as their customers, and the work often reflects common social concerns. “These artists always had to take into account social expectations,” Ceuppens continues, “so in a sense these art works are created in a dialogue between the people who execute them and the people who buy them.”

More than simple decoration, these paintings were often used as conversation pieces. “The idea is

The federal government has announced plans for a War Heritage Institute (WHI), which will bring together the current Royal Museum of the Armed Forces in Brussels’ Jubelpark with several organisations, including the National Institute for Veterans and the National Memorial Fort Breendonk. The purpose of the WHI, said federal health minister Maggie De Block and defence minister Steven Vandeput, who co-announced the formation of the institute, will be to honour war veterans and educate visitors on the conflicts that have occurred on Belgian soil as well the country’s contribution to conflicts abroad. The new institution would be located in the Royal Military School, also in Jubelpark. The government is currently exploring public-private investment opportunities and plans an infrastructure study.

In De Wulf up for sale

© Collection RMCA

“Le chemin de l’exil” (The Exile) by Chéri Chérin, 2004

that they provoke thought, reflection and debate,” says Ceuppens.

“People can also use them to settle conflicts or to bring an end to a discussion, and so to start anew.”

This explains the popularity of paintings depicting proverbs or allegories. One that recurs in the exhibition is of a man climbing a tree on a riverbank. He is escaping from a lion, unaware that a python awaits him in the branches, while a crocodile lurks in the water below.

This story – called Inakale – can be read in different ways, from a tale of fate and misfortune, to a spur to creative thinking.

the other painting is more violent, it appears less invasive than having to look at the face of a well- known oppressor.”

There is no such problem with the heroes of Congolese independence.

Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister, is represented in many paintings, while a striking series by the artist Burozi tells the story of Lumpungu Kamanda, a traditional chief killed for resisting the colonial administration.

There are also rooms devoted to more recent paintings that explore issues in urban life and touch on politics under the dictator Mobutu

other priorities than buying paintings.

As well as popular paintings, the exhibition includes more traditional art works, such as carvings, decorated gourds and textiles, along with photographs of ancient art drawn on rocks. There is work by more formally schooled Congolese artists, who tended to sell to Europeans. And there are photographs from magazines, which also decorated people’s homes and influenced popular painting.

Finally, there are some of the earliest works on paper by Congolese artists, dating back to the 1920s

Even if the other painting is more violent, it appears less invasive than having to look at the face of a well-known oppressor Paintings depicting the time when Congo was a Belgian colony were also popular and worked both as conversation pieces and to recall historical events. One image, repeated by several artists, shows Congolese men being whipped violently by European soldiers.

“One can wonder why on earth anyone would want to be confronted with that, on a daily basis, in their own living room,” Ceuppens says.

But she goes on to observe that the archive contains only one painting of Leopold II, the Belgian king who created the colony.

“If you compare the two, I think that makes sense,” she says. “Even if

Sese Seko. The outstanding artist here is Chéri Chérin, who covers both topics in bright, colourful paintings with a powerful sense of composition.

This more contemporary work is still popular, but its context and role has changed. “The artists continue to tap into the major pre-occupations of ordinary people,” says Ceuppens, “but they are no longer popular in the sense that they now predominantly sell to expatriates on the international art market.”

Congo’s middle classes now have

Until 22 January

and 1930s. One of the questions Ceuppens would like to explore further is how these paintings fit into the history of art in the Congo.

“I like to consider it as a single history, and the next step is to show where the continuities and differences are,” she says. “For lovers of the European avant garde these paintings can seem very modern, whereas if you look at it from a Congolese perspective, in relation to rock art for example, it would seem that they draw on a centuriesold tradition of drawing.”

Bozar

Ravensteinstraat 23, Brussels

In De Wulf, chef Kobe Desramaults’ Michelinstarred restaurant in Dranouter, West Flanders, went up for sale earlier this month. The final dinner service will take place at the celebrated establishment on 10 December. Now running two restaurants in Ghent – De Superette and De Vitrine – Desramaults had announced last year that he would shut the restaurant he opened with his mother 13 years ago.

The building that houses In De Wulf also includes a bed & breakfast. The celebrity chef ’s mother, Heidi Foulon, owns the building and is selling it herself. No price is being made public; interested buyers must contact her directly.

Crowdfunding of Gauguin restoration a success The restoration of French painter Paul Gauguin’s “Portrait of Suzanne Bambridge” will go ahead, following a successful crowdfunding campaign by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels. The museum raised the €22,500 it needed in just 15 days. That sum is being matched by the Leuven-based Baillet Latour fund to pay the total cost of the restoration, which will begin at the end of this month. It is expected to take some six months.

Any additional funds that come in to the crowdfunding campaign will be used to restore other works, said the museum’s communications manager.

\ 13

\ ARTS

The Zombie Diaries

Flemish musician Jan Swerts on the personal traumas that inform his new album Christophe Verbiest More articles by Christophe \ flanderstoday.eu

Limburg musician Jan Swerts bares his soul on his latest album, about bringing up an ill child and the breakdown of his marriage, and how losing his mother was an encouragement to carry on living.

“M

y prime ambition has always been writing soundtracks – much more than making records,” says Jan Swerts. “But that’s a closed world. You often see the same names on the credits of films or series.” So, 15 years ago, Swerts started working on what became his first album: Weg (meaning “road” or “gone”), released in 2010.

It contained sparsely arranged neoclassical music with Swerts’ piano playing at its heart. At times, he sang, too, in English; apart from catching phrases here and there, it

JANSWERTS.BE

question of what would happen to the inanimate objects on earth when all the people were dead.”

Not wanting to wait until a director found their way to Limburg, he decided to write a soundtrack for a non-existent movie. The plan lingered in his head for years, and he was considering it as his third album.

Then life happened. His son became seriously ill, his marriage ended, and his mother died after a long battle against cancer. He also discovered that he was autistic.

His seven-year-old son, Jef, was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome, characterised by uncontrollable tics. The first psychiatrist they saw told Swerts that he himself was a textbook example of Asperger’s syndrome.

“It’s true that even as a child I

I hesitated about revealing the autobiographical side of the music, but talking about it helps was impossible to understand the lyrics.

That was the idea: the voice as just an extra instrument, not the conveyor of meaning.

Swerts, from Sint-Truiden in Limburg, always thought Weg would be his first and last album.

But a rave review in Humo changed his life. The album was subsequently picked up by other major Flemish media and two major record companies courted him.

He signed with Universal and recorded his second album, De anatomie van de melancholie (The Anatomy of the Melancholy).

Still, the aspiring film composer in him was bubbling to the surface.

As a zombie aficionado, his ultimate dream was to compose a score for a zombie flick. “As a child I was wild about post-apocalyptic comics. I was fascinated by the

could never handle disturbance or commotion well. I hated big groups and loud spaces,” he says.

“My favourite activity was arranging the comics in my room. In silence, of course.”

He admits to be being irritable. “I can’t handle the totally unpredictable person that Jef has become,” he says. “It’s hell that he has a sickness that I can’t deal with. If he’d had another disease, that would have been as bad for him, but at least I could have been the great father that I know I can be.”

All this led to the implosion of Swerts’ marriage. “We had a great relationship, and Daniela will always be the love of my life. But we had to find a mode where I could still give all my possible love to Jef, without me going insane. Now I see him twice a week.”

This turmoil informed his new

© Nele Driessen

Jan Swerts is on tour across Flanders until 3 December, with stops in Leuven, Antwerp, Bruges, Hasselt and Ghent

album, Schaduwland (Shadowland). You wouldn’t guess it from the lyrics, though the magnificent artwork does give a few clues.

“I hesitated about revealing the autobiographical side of the music, because it sounds so self-indulgent, but I realised talking about it helps me. And my ex had no problem with it.”

People often don’t get why Swerts can’t deal with his son’s condition.

He understands that.

“It’s difficult to empathise with something you can’t see,” he says.

“When you’re in pain mentally, the reaction is often ‘try harder’. But

let’s suppose a cat was the most important being in my life, and one day I became allergic to cats: rash, watery eyes, you name it. When I make that comparison, people do understand – because it’s physical.”

Swerts found refuge in his parents’ home, ending up back in his old bedroom with his old piano.

“Meanwhile, my mother was dying downstairs, racked with pain,” he recalls. “The framework of my life had completely been set. I discovered that the only way to survive heavy traumas was living on automatic pilot. The only rescue for me

was zombification.”

With a wry smile he adds: “It’s quite ironic. I always had an aversion to the zombies from Dawn of the Dead: mindless beings that only want to consume. I became what I’d always hated. And I had to give up some certainties. The idea, for instance, that life is malleable.

Or that knowledge is power. Not true: Ignorance is bliss.”

He says he has always been melancholic, addicted to nostalgia. But after his diagnosis, he realised that was no more than a neurological aberration, “a defect in my brain”.

“On my first two albums, I flirted with the great emotions conjured up by transience and mortality; it was a romanticised study of melancholia. But this new album was born out of necessity, a huge necessity.”

It took some time to realise that, though. “At first I thought, what’s the use of making music. But after a while music came back.”

It first happened during breaks at the University College LeuvenLimburg, where he teaches. He describes it as a form of decompression, the way other people play sports.

Subsequently, he started working on his new album. “The idea was: This is the last thing I do, an ultimate convulsion, a farewell letter.

And afterwards I don’t want to be anymore.”

Suicidal as this sounds, Swerts is alive and kicking. “It changed during the making of the album.

The music helped me to contextualise what had happened,” he says.

“The death of my mother, strangely, was also an encouragement to live.

I often get asked whether making Schaduwland was a catharsis. I don’t know.”

The album is conceived in four parts, corresponding to the four stages of processing trauma. The last one is Acceptance. “I put a question mark after it,” says Swerts.

“But yes, making this music gave me some hope again.”

More new music this month TaxiWars Fever • Universal A year and half after their surprising debut, TaxiWars return with Fever. The indeed febrile album leans on the juxtaposition of jazz cat Robin Verheyen’s sax and the brassy vocals of Tom Barman, of dEUS fame. Fever is a more restrained outing than its predecessor, but at times the foursome (also bass player Nicolas Thys and drummer Antoine Pierre) still

\ 14

produce some unruly tunes. This sleazy jazz with a punk attitude at times, too, recalls the cult New York band Soul Coughing. \ taxiwars.be

Bazart Echo • [PIAS] Antwerp-Ghent band Bazart are the Flemish musical sensation of the year.

This summer, they conquered the biggest

festivals, despite having released just one EP and a few singles. Their debut album, Echo, entered the charts at number one and their concerts sell out faster than you can say “on sale”. Their golden formula is a combination of R&B and contemporary electronic pop with Dutch lyrics. The latter, with their simple rhymes, are the band’s Achilles’ heel. \ facebook.com/bazartband

\ AGENDA

november 9, 2016

Cinema as diverse as Europe

CONCERT

Lux Film Days 15-16 November

M

aking a film that appeals to both kids and adults remains a challenge for most filmmakers, and they could all take a cue from Claude Barras. The Swiss filmmaker’s animated feature debut Ma vie de Courgette (My Life as a Courgette) is by turns delightful and disturbing.

When 10-year-old Courgette (not his real name) loses his only parent, he must enter a home for kids even more troubled than he. As each child’s history unfolds, families face subjects they don’t often find in children’s cinema fare. Fortunately, adversity is offset by kindness, and the stop-motion animation, with its big potato-shaped heads and bright

Leuven

Bozar, Brussels bozar.be

shocks of hair, helps keep things whimsical.

All this was enough to get Courgette (pictured) a nomination for the Lux Film Prize, the European parliament’s annual nod to the best in European cinema of the last year. The prize is meant to promote cinema across the 28 member states and encourage co-productions but also to create conversations around EU policies and values.

As part of Lux Film Days, Bozar in Brussels will screen Courgette together with the other two nominees. A peine j’ourvre les yeux (As I Open My Eyes), a co-production of four countries, including Belgium, is Tunisian director Leyla Bouz-

© @Rita Productions/Blue Spirit Productions/Gebeka Films

id’s feature debut, and the director will be in Bozar to talk about it.

It’s a beauty of a movie, showcasing Tunis’ vivid colours and pulsing

FESTIVAL

VISUAL ARTS

Pink Screens

Victor Delhez

10-19 November Brussels’ queer film festival returns for its 15th anniversary edition. Every year, Pink Screens showcases the world’s best new films exploring diverse sexualities and genders. The festival also includes performances, concerts, workshops and an exhibition. All this unfolds at three venues in the heart of the capital: Cinema

Across Brussels pinkscreens.org

Nova, Cinema Aventure and Beursschouwburg, which hosts a selection of experimental shorts as well as the festival’s popular annual party Pink Night. Opening night boasts screenings of Chilean filmmaker Pepa San Martin’s Rara and Austrian director Jakob M Erwa’s Die Mitte der Welt (Centre of My World). \ Georgio Valentino

Until 15 January

EVENT

Ryley Walker

Making a Murderer

Chicago-based guitar hero Ryley Walker and his band are currently touring Europe to promote the acclaimed folk artist’s third album Golden Sings That Have Been Sung.

The follow-up to his breakthrough 2015 release Primrose Green finds Walker further honing his fingerpicking skills on retro-flavoured ditties that evoke 1970s jazz-folk icons like Nick Drake and Tim Buckley. An immersive experience, Walker even wears period costumes. Bruges is just one stop on a marathon 32-date tour across the continent. The band’s only other Belgian date – at Brussels’ Ancienne Belgique – is already sold out. \ GV

Cactus Muziekcentrum, Bruges cactusmusic.be

\ Lisa Bradshaw

19 March The Emmy-nominated Netflix original documentary Making a Murderer has caused a stir not just in the United States, where it was produced, but in Europe as well.

The 10-episode series explores the case of Wisconsinite Steven Avery, who was wrongly imprisoned for 18 years before being

\ stuk.be

DANCE Ghent Arco Renz – East: The German dancer and choreographer draws inspiration from personal experiences in Asia and Europe to reflect on the clash between eastern heritage and western modern dance, his movements intensified by DJ sets and a spherical installation. 16 November 20.00-21.00, Vooruit, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 23 \ vooruit.be

VISUAL ARTS Antwerp FeliXart Museum, Brussels felixart.org

Belgian modernism was truly a global phenomenon. Antwerpborn engraver Victor Delhez, whose pioneering work is celebrated with this retrospective exhibition, is but one case in point. Following a family tragedy, a young Delhez emigrated to South America, bringing with him the avant-garde aesthetic that permeated his native land in the 1920s. Once in Buenos Aires, the artist fused European abstract technique with the local realismo mágico.

Of course Delhez maintained his ties to Europe, where he exhibited frequently during a career that spanned a half-century. This exposed European artists to New World influences and enriched the cultural life of both hemispheres. \ GV

CONCERT 11 November, 20.00

rhythms in streets and nightclubs.

The film is an interesting take on the young-woman-rebellingagainst-tradition genre, as the young woman in question is not being steered towards marriage but medical school. Still, she’s determined to be a singer and live life on the edge.

German director Maren Ade’s multiple-award-winning Toni Erdmann, meanwhile, has rather taken Europe by storm, with critics and audiences responding enthusiastically to the occasionally hilarious but largely painful scenario of an older man desperate to connect with his distant, driven daughter.

Egor Doubay Quartet: STUKcafe’s free Sunday evening concerts by local and international jazz artists features this Amsterdam-based quartet of piano, bass, sax and drums.

13 November 21.00, STUKcafé, Naamsestraat 96

No More, No Less: Retrospective of the work of Flemish photographer Bernaded Dexters, whose iconic portraits of world-famous stars, including metal and rock musicians and niche artists, are coupled with the launch of her new book relating 35 years of analogue concert photography. Until 27 November, eyeLoco gallery, De Brouwerstraat 5 \ eyeLoco.eu

Ghent HALL05: A combi architectural project and low-tech theatre installation invites visitors to enter a wooden structure and experience the space, without text or prompting, turning ordinary behaviour into spontaneous performance. 12-27 November 15.00, Sint-Niklaas Church, Cataloniëstraat get tic

kets n ow

Arenberg, Antwerp arenbergschouwburg.be

released – only to be convicted of murder two years later. The case has inspired countless polemics about the US legal system. Now, with a second series in the works, Avery’s lawyers Dean Strang and Jerry Buting are touring the world to discuss the case live. (In English) \ GV

\ taat-projects.com

FESTIVAL Brussels Export/Import Festival: Annual children’s theatre festival featuring both local and international productions, all of which keep verbal exchanges to a minimum to rely on the universal language of mime, music and movement. 10-13 November, across Brussels \ bronks.be

FAIR Ghent Visit Africa Day: Free annual travel fair with more than 35 experts on hand to offer advice and inspiration for travel to African countries. 11 November 10.30-17.00, Flanders Expo, Maaltekouter 1 \ visit-africa.be

\ 15

\ BACKPAGE

november 9, 2016

Talking Dutch Is Brexit a hard cheese or a soft revolution?

In response to Wurst and last: celeb chef ’s hot-dog joint fails to deliver Richard Harris: You can’t complain about it being bland if you didn’t eat the jalapeno slices.

Derek Blyth More articles by Derek \ flanderstoday.eu

I

t might not be the most urgent question of our time, but De Standaard recently wanted to know if Brexit was like kaas – cheese and if it was mannelijk of vrouwelijk – masculine or feminine.

The issue of gender is just the latest in a long series of challenges posed by the UK’s decision to quit the European Union.

Het zal nog jaren duren voor de Brexit een feit is – It will take years before Brexit is a fact, De Standaard mused, maar een zaak lijkt beslist – but one thing seems to have been resolved. Het woord is mannelijk – The word is masculine. Al zijn de Italianen het daar niet mee eens – Although the Italians don’t agree.

The Brexit gender discussion was sparked off by the former UK minister for Europe Denis McShane. In het Frans en het Duits wordt de Britse exit mannelijk – The British exit is masculine in French and German. Dat geldt ook voor het Spaans – The same is true for Spanish. Daar wordt gesproken over el Brexit – There they talk of el Brexit.

What about our own language? Van Dale heeft het woord opgenomen en als mannelijk gecatalogeerd – Van Dale [the definitive Dutch dictionary] has catalogued the word as masculine. Logisch – Logical, notes the paper. Exit bestaat al in het Nederlands – Exit exists already in Dutch. Het is mannelijk – It’s masculine.

So it’s decided. But there was another important question for language experts: Moeten we Brexit met hoofdletter of met kleine letter schrijven? – Do we write Brexit with a capital or a lower-case letter?

De Taalunie wijdde er al een artikel aan – The Taalunie [Dutch Language Union] devoted an entire article to the question. Het moet met kleine letter, was de conclu-

VoiceS of flanders today

In response to Leuven to open international house for expats Jeanette Bell: At last! Modernisation, acknowledgement and understanding of a cosmopolitan society.

Š Ingimage

sie – It had to be a small letter, was the conclusion.

Er werd verwezen naar de regel – They pointed to the rule die zegt dat een woord dat van een aardrijkskundige naam is afgeleid – that says a word derived from a geographical name met een kleine letter geschreven wordt – is written with a small letter. Dat is bijvoorbeeld het geval bij edammer in de betekenis ‘kaas’ – that is the case with edammer when it means cheese.

But De Standaard was having none of it. Toch blijft De Standaard tot nader order Brexit met een grote B schrijven – But De Standaard is going to keep on using a capital B, it announced.

De Brexit is een historisch feit geworden – Brexit has become a historical fact, vergelijkbaar met de Arabische Lente – like the Arab Spring, de Fluwelen Revolutie – the Velvet Revolution, de Lange Mars – the Long March: allemaal begrippen die we met een hoofdletter schrijven – all of them concepts that we write with a capital letter.

The B question looks like yet another Brexit headache that will take years to resolve.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

In response to Have yourself a beery little Christmas with new advent calendar Sandra Vives Lynch: I will be getting one of these. Jordi hands off.... or else đ&#x;˜ˆ

In response to Restaurant terraces to disappear from Brussels’ pedestrian centre Lau Brnad: It is about time! I agree with this decision of the city!

Alan Shannon @alanjshannon Oldest bar in the world? 500-year-old Cafe Vlissinghe in #Bruges still serving. Friendly dog included.

Yasmine @haddouyas So today I was in Antwerp, then I went home, then I went to Ghent, then back to Antwerp, and now I ended in Ghent, you can tell how tired I am

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Louison Grajcar created the scent of a rotting corpse for a theatre production by NTGent

Š Belga handout

MAKING TRACKS The newly unveiled design for Mechelen’s renovated railway station, which will cost ₏100 million and should be ready by 2025. It will include a bus station and parking space for 2,000 cars and 5,000 bikes

5ELNGFR*bbgbcg+[E\P \ 16