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november 23, 2016 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ read more at www.flanderstoday.eu current affairs \ p2

CD&V shake-up

politics \ p4

BUSiNESS \ p6

innovation \ p7

Mapping music

education \ p9

art & living \ p10

Nature of the beast

Former minister-president and current federal minister Kris Peeters is moving house to Antwerp to lead the list in the next elections

A Flemish architect’s hobby has turned into an addictive website that maps music history by genre, complete with playlists

A new exhibition explores an enchanting period in art history, when Flemish painters pioneered animal imagery and portraiture

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Finished symphony

Philharmonic’s move to grand new Antwerp home ends a 60-year search Clodagh Kinsella More articles by Clodagh \ flanderstoday.eu

The Royal Flemish Philharmonic is about to move into the new Queen Elisabeth Center, a state-of-the-art concert hall that’s been a labour of love for a variety of international specialists.

T

he Royal Flemish Philharmonic has led a peripatetic existence for six decades, but as the Antwerp-based symphony orchestra prepares to move into its new stateof-the-art home this month, it will finally have a showcase worthy of its talents.

The Queen Elisabeth Hall, which opens on 25 November, is the centrepiece of the new Elisabeth Center Antwerp – also home to the 25,000 square-metre Flanders Meeting & Convention Center. Intertwined with Antwerp Zoo, the building sits on Koningin Astridplein, metres from Central Station.

The centre, which is managed by the Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp (KMDA), was built with €57 million provided by the Flemish authorities and €3 million from the city of Antwerp.

The KDMA paid for renovating the historic adjoining wing of the Zoo. The project was approved by the Flemish government’s official architect in 2009, and demolition began in 2013. Manchester’s SimpsonHaugh and Partners, whose portfolio includes London’s Battersea Power Station redevelopment, teamed up with audio specialists Bureau Bouwtechniek of Antwerp and Chicago’s Kirkegaard Associates on the design.

Larry Kirkegaard’s American acoustics firm has worked on high-profile venues such as London’s Royal Festival Hall and

The integration of the historical wing into the new building with the glass roof is very impressive

© Jesse Willems/deFilharmonie

Barbican Concert Hall. When he initially assessed the Queen Elisabeth Hall’s sound quality, it achieved a rating of just six out of 10.

“It was a compromised room designed to accommodate many, many functions – among them concert use, but it wasn’t the highest priority,” he explains. “It was difficult for performers to feel good about the sound they made in the room.”

While retrofitting the hall would merely have papered over the cracks, entirely rebuilding it has resulted in near perfection: a rating of 9.3. “What they have now is a real concert hall, one that was designed for that purpose,” says Kirkegaard. “It’s a whole new sound and a whole new room.”

Among the measures he adopted were movable panels suspended from the ceiling to allow sound to project fully into continued on page 5

\ CURRENT AFFAIRS

Antwerp ‘should cover ring road’, says Oosterweel consultant Hired expert supports making a tunnel out of the port city’s ring road connection Alan Hope Follow Alan on Twitter \ @AlanHopeFT

A

project to cover over the Antwerp ring road, which is being connected as part of the Oosterweel project, would cost €9 billion, according to a report by government consultant Alexander D’Hooghe.

D’Hooghe, an associate professor at MIT and a founding partner of the think tank Organization for Permanent Modernity, was appointed by the government of Flanders at the end of last year to compile a report on the various opinions surrounding the Oosterweel connection. The project will link the left bank of the Scheldt river to the right side of Antwerp’s ring road.

D’Hooghe has opted to support the plan suggested by the activist group Ringland, which involves covering over the ring, turning it into a tunnel. The roof of the enclosure would create whole new sections of land for parks and leisure, proponents argue. In addition, the tunnel would control pollution being released into the air from the motorway.

© Courtesy Ringland

Among other conditions, D’Hooghe calls for the stakeholders in the debate, both government and neighbourhood groups

such as Ademloos and StRaten-Generaal, to unite around his proposal and end their years-long disputes over Oosterweel.

“This is a plea for a third option,” said D’Hooghe, presenting his 200-page report. “If we can reconcile the Oosterweel connection and liveability, then there’s no longer any need to fight one another. I call on government and activist movements to back this vision.”

The neighbourhood groups immediately welcomed D’Hooghe’s vision of the ring as a tunnel. The report, however, leaves a great many questions unanswered, StRaten-Generaal said.

Flemish mobility minister Ben Weyts, meanwhile, said he was “satisfied” with the conclusions of the report. “It is time now to move forward and realise what we have promised, meaning better mobility and better liveability. And that includes covering over the Antwerp ring.”

Flanders’ English skills getting better

Flanders considers more plastic waste recycling

Belgium jumped up six places in a list of countries according to their residents’ command of English. The ranking was carried out by Education First, an American organisation that supports language learning and overseas studies.

The study was carried out in 72 countries among 950,000 adults whose mother tongue is not English. Belgium came in 11th place, but the study shows wide differences among the regions.

The table is headed by the Netherlands, and, with the exception of Singapore at number six, the top 10 is made up of European nations. Belgium comes next at 11, up from 17th place last year, although it has been as high as number six, which it earned in 2012.

When looking at the regions separately, Dutch-speakers in Brussels and Flanders would have been in fifth place after the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, with French-speakers in Brussels and Wallonia dropping down to 30th place.

The study also looked at four cities – Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels and Liège – and found their English proficiency ranked in that order. Men scored slightly higher overall than women, a reverse of the general and European trend. \ AH

The government of Flanders is considering introducing a new pink-coloured bag to recycle plastics that are not allowed to be part of the blue PMD bags, environment minister Joke Schauvliege has announced.

At present, the rules differ from municipality to municipality on what is allowed in the PMD bag: Some allow plastic shopping bags or margarine tubs, while others do not.

There is currently a pilot project in some municipalities to test out the separate pink bag.

Schauvliege suggested that the pink bags would cost 25 cents, less than the cost of the general rubbish bag, making it cheaper for households to sort their rubbish. According to Flemish public waste agency Ovam, the average resident produces 468 kilograms of rubbish a year, the lowest figure in 20 years and 100kg less than 15 years ago.

“We are doing a good job and belong to the best in Europe,” Schauvliege said. “We need to carry on like that.” \ AH

Weekend storm causes injuries and transport delays Belgium awoke on Monday to widespread damage from the storm that crossed the country over the weekend. On Sunday, wind gusts reached 100kph inland and 115kph at the port in Zeebrugge, the Royal Meteorological Institute said.

In Antwerp, an American tourist was seriously injured when scaffolding collapsed as she was walking on the Groenplaats in the city centre. In Borsbeek, Antwerp province, a 17-yearold scout was hit by a falling tree, while in Sint-Gillis in Brussels, a woman was taken to hospital after being injured by a collapsing chimney. Police said her condition was not lifethreatening.

In Opwijk, Flemish Brabant, a falling tree hit an electrical cable, causing sparks. In Ostend, police closed part of a main road, fearing the high winds could affect two construction

cranes. Emergency services everywhere were under pressure and asked the public to use the emergency number 112 only for emergencies where lives were in danger.

In Brussels, several tram routes were limited where the route passed through wooded areas, and replaced with shuttle buses. On the railways, there were several cases of trains being held up by fallen branches and other obstacles carried by the wind. The line between Tielt and Deinze was particularly affected, as was traffic between Brussels and the coast, a problem that continued into Monday morning’s commute.

The nature and woodland agency advised local authorities to close access to parks and forests because of the danger of falling branches and trees. In Antwerp, parks and cemeteries were closed, while Ter Kameren wood in Brussels was closed

23,000

© Nicolas Maeterlinck/BELGA

Scaffolding collapsed on Groenplaats in Antwerp on Sunday, seriously injuring a tourist

to traffic. Parks in the Brussels region were also closed, as was Citadelpark in Ghent. \ AH

93%

49,000

32 new jobs created this year in small and medium-sized businesses in Flanders, according to HR consultants SD Worx. In Brussels, SMEs were responsible for creating 1,000 new jobs

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trees to be planted in the Sonien Forest in remembrance of the victims of the March bomb attacks in Brussels and Zaventem, in a memorial park created by landscape architect Bas Smets

of Flemish people make regular visits to “Doctor Google”, using the internet for self-diagnosis, according to health insurer CM. One in three then decide not to follow up with a doctor

of traffic jams last Wednesday morning, the worst Wednesday of the year, according to the Flemish Traffic Centre. Heavy rain following a long dry spell forced lorries to cut their speed

names of Belgians with bank accounts in Luxembourg, stolen from a bank in the Grand Duchy and handed over to Belgium’s tax authorities, finance minister Johan Van Overtveldt said

november 23, 2016

WEEK in brief Police in Brussels used tear gas and water cannon last week to disperse the crowd during a march by military personnel protesting at new pension regulations. Some 8,000 people took part in the protest.

The protest was against the decision by the federal government to raise the retirement age for military personnel from the current 56 to 63 by 2030, by increments of six months each year. There will also be changes to the way pensions are calculated.

Five-time Olympic gold medallist Sir Bradley Wiggins won the Six Days of Flanders-Ghent track cycle race at the weekend, together with fellow Olympian Mark Cavendish. Wiggins, who was born in Ghent, and Cavendish headed into what would be the deciding Madison event trailing by a lap and 53 points. Having gained lap parity, Wiggins went flying off the front with just five laps to go. After a tussle with the pack, he and Cavendish were declared lap leaders with time expiring.

The Brussels-Capital Region government will no longer allow those taking the written exam in a driving course to use an interpreter if they do not speak one of the city’s two official languages.

According to road safety minister Bianca Debaets, it’s too difficult to rule out cheating. Instead, foreigners can turn to a set of pre-recorded official translations of questions in a multitude of languages, including English, German and Arabic. Last year 2,113 people made use of an interpreter.

Three bodies have been recovered from the wreckage of a Royal Air Force bomber that crashed at Glabbeek, Flemish Brabant, in March of 1945. The plane – a Lancaster NN775 – was returning from a mission in Germany and came down on marshy ground. It had sunk several metres over the years. Tail gunner Sergeant Christopher Hogg of Birmingham, then

face of flanders aged 20, has been identified. The other two bodies are believed to be pilot Holman Kerr from Northern Ireland and 18-year-old Flight Sergeant Allan Olsen, an Australian.

The development coalition 11.11.11, a consortium of more than 300 organisations in Flanders that fight poverty around the world, has described the results of its latest fund-raising drive, slightly higher than last year’s €5.6 million, as “heartwarming”. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the coalition.

M Museum in Leuven welcomed a special guest to its exhibition on Thomas More’s Utopia last week.

François de Pierpont is a direct descendant of More, the chancellor to Henry VIII who in 1516 wrote the book (and coined the word) on which the exhibition, In Search of Utopia, is based.

Cyclists may now turn right on a red light in the Brussels-Capital Region, and all 19 municipalities must place traffic signs at road junctions to make this clear to cyclists and drivers. It is estimated that cyclists in Brussels spend onefifth of their travel time stopped at red lights.

Flemish author and playwright Jeroen Olyslaegers has issued a call for “collective civil disobedience” after it was revealed that water prices are to increase substantially on 1 January. “I propose to no longer pay our water bills,” he posted on Facebook. The water companies have explained the need for a price increase because people are using less water. Over the last six years, the average water bill has gone up by 39%.

The City of Brussels has drawn up a list of names of women to be used for the naming of new streets. Among them are Brit-

ish MP Jo Cox, who was killed on the street in Birstall in June in the run-up to the Brexit vote. Also on the list are Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman; Belgium’s first female university graduate, Isala Van Diest; wartime spy for the British Gabrielle Petit; and early 20th-century Olympic swimmer Claire Guttenstein.

The prosecutor-general in Ghent is re-examining a claim that the family of a murder victim tried to influence the investigation into the case. According to telephone records obtained by VRT, the father of Stijn Saelens and his lawyer contacted a former minister as well as a Bruges magistrate. Saelens disappeared from his manor house in Wingene, West Flanders, in January 2012 and was found dead two weeks later. This week a court in Bruges is due to rule on a request to send five men, including Saelens’ father-in-law and brother-in-law, for trial.

Priority for subsidies will be given to sports infrastructure projects in Brussels because of a budgetary mechanism known as the Brussels Norm. The Norm says that 5% of Flemish spending must go to the capital. The government of Flanders has committed €45 million to sports infrastructure until the end of 2019. That means €2.2 million for Brussels. After that amount has been reached, Brussels projects can still apply, but will be treated on the same basis as projects from Flanders.

National post office Bpost has launched Bringr, a digital platform that allows anyone in three cities – Brussels, Ghent and Antwerp – to deliver packages for a small fee. An app makes contact with users willing to carry the package, and they receive a payment dependent on the size of the package and the distance travelled. Bpost takes a commission on each delivery.

© Geert Van Hoeymissen/VRT

Björn Soenens We live in interesting times, as the UK drifts off from the Continent and a billionaire novice prepares to enter the White House. One man intent on taking advantage of the opportunity all this presents is Björn Soenens, Flemish public broadcaster VRT’s new US correspondent.

Formerly editor-in-chief of the broadcaster’s news department, Soenens, 48, will be replacing Tom Van de Weghe.

Soenens was born in Roeselare and started his media career in 1991 with Radio 2 in West Flanders. By 1995, he was on national TV in the evening news and the current affairs programme Terzake.

He then helped create the documentary show Koppen before returning to the news in 2003. He became editor-in-chief in 2013.

He hasn’t just parachuted into what must currently be the most interesting job in journalism, however. He had a sort of morning “radio column” called Amerikawatcher, which won a Dexia Press Prize in 2010.

His documentary Stemmen uit Iowa (Voices from Iowa) was

nominated for an AIB award from the Association for International Broadcasting. And he has written three books on the US, including one called Blijven proberen, Obama! (Keep Trying, Obama!).

Soenens said he was “delighted” with the appointment. “I will be reporting for all of VRT’s platforms about and from the underbelly of American society,” he said. “These are extremely exciting times, now that the USA is becoming a sort of United States of Trump. To me, America has always been God’s open-air laboratory…. It’s not like a country, it’s like a planet.”

VRT managing director Liesbet Vrieleman said: “Since last Wednesday the US has become a different country, and the world a different world. That’s why we’ve chosen to have a correspondent there, and Björn Soenens is the man for the job. He knows the US through and through, its politics as well as its society.”

Soenens will take up his new post on 20 January, the day Donald Trump takes up his. \ Alan Hope

\ bringr.be

OFFSIDE No-beer zone According to the late Flemish singer and with a father and two daughters. One of the showman Bobbejaan Schoepen’s song girls lost a kidney. That stayed with me.”

“Café zonder bier”, there was nothShe’s not against alcohol per se, she ing worse in the world – not even explained further. “I’m happy for “a beach without sand” or “life people to have a pintje from time in prison” – than a bar without to time. But I will not be the origin beer. of any accident caused by a drunk A common sentiment, no doubt, driver. I won’t serve anything that in this beerland par excellence. makes people do crazy things.”

Though not, perhaps for the Bizar has a range of other drinks, patrons of the brand new, aptly vegan snacks and desserts, includnamed Bizar Café in Ghent’s Zwijning some that are lactose-free. All aardsesteenweg. Ria Magherman, the fittings are second-hand or handa former schoolteacher who left the made by craftspeople, and there are profession to open the bar, decided to offer regional products for sale. © Ingimage all manner of drinks – but none with alcohol.

“I have a lot of friends, and almost nobody drinks,” “I was 16 when an accident happened in our street,” she Magherman said. “Do you think we can’t have a good told Het Laatste Nieuws. “A drunk driver drove into a car time? Of course we can.” \ AH

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

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

Editor Lisa 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 Riding the wave Flanders’ far right party, Vlaams Belang, has censured three of its most prominent members – Filip Dewinter, Anke Van dermeersch and Jan Penris – for visiting the Greek neofascist party Golden Dawn. The move shows a remarkable rift in a party that has always stood united.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, journalists flocked to Flanders to report on the success of what was then called Vlaams Blok. The party capitalised first on anti-immigrant and later on anti-Islamic concerns. In 2004, the party got nearly one-quarter of the Flemish parliament vote.

But Vlaams Belang never made it into a government coalition because all the region’s other parties respected a cordon sanitaire, excluding Vlaams Belang from even the smallest town councils. Some people believe that this cordon made the party an underdog, contributing to its success.

In its glory days, two Vlaams Belang politicians stood out: Gerolf Annemans and Filip Dewinter. The first was seen as the intellectual, the second as the street fighter, neither shying away from xenophobic one-liners.

But the N-VA brought a halt to Vlaams Belang’s electoral allure. N-VA shares the Flemish nationalist beliefs but without the racist aspects.

N-VA’s straight-talking president, Bart De Wever, and its tough stance on institutional issues have attracted many former Vlaams Belang voters.

In recent elections, Vlaams Belang has dwindled into near extinction.

The reporters that looked into Flanders’ “racist” electorate in the 1990s now have Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump to contend with. Vlaams Belang’s new party president, Tom Van Grieken, hopes to ride the same wave.

He is helped by the asylum crisis, discussions such as the burqini ban and by the N-VA having to compromise as part of coalitions. He has distanced himself from Dewinter, who recently also visited the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Van Grieken is no choirboy himself – He once threw sausages at a school’s halal barbecue – but it looks like he is trying to make his party more respectable, much like Marine Le Pen did when she expelled her father from the French FN. But Dewinter, who introduced the image of boxing gloves in his party’s campaigns, never gives up without a fight. \ Anja Otte

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Peeters to head Antwerp list for CD&V in 2018 elections

The federal minister will go head-to-head against mayor Bart De Wever Alan Hope Follow Alan on Twitter \ @AlanHopeFT

K

ris Peeters, the former ministerpresident of Flanders now serving as federal minister of work and consumer affairs, has accepted his party’s nomination to lead the CD&V list in Antwerp for the 2018 municipal elections. The decision puts him in direct opposition to Bart De Wever (N-VA), the incumbent mayor.

Peeters will now move house, from Puurs to Antwerp. Former Flemish energy minister Annemie Turtelboom made the same move in 2012, when she led the list in Antwerp for Open VLD. “If we want visibility for CD&V in Antwerp during the election campaign, then we need a national figure as list-leader,” explained Ariane Van Dooren, chair of the Antwerp branch of the party. “The name that was regularly put forward by our members was Kris Peeters. His profile matches our vision of how politics needs to be done in Antwerp.”

Peeters’ successor as Flemish minister-presi-

© Nicolas Maeterlinck/BELGA

From left: Geert Bourgeois, Bart De Wever and Kris Peeters following the 2014 election

dent, Geert Bourgeois, is a party colleague of De Wever and expressed surprise at the decision. “I’ve never known Kris Peeters to be concerned with the local level,” he told VRT. “The people of Antwerp will decide. The N-VA have a very good mayor there.”

According to CD&V president Wouter Beke,

the focus on Antwerp does not signify the disappearance of Kris Peeters from the wider stage. After the municipal elections in 2018, the party will call on him for the Flemish and federal elections.

Peeters’ move to Antwerp is a means of helping the party gain some visibility in the light of its low polling figures in the port city, Beke said. Though hopes are not necessarily high that he will wrest the mayoral sash away from De Wever, his presence will, the party hopes, help raise its profile further down the ticket.

“I know very well what the risks are, and that the bar has been set very high,” Peeters said.

“I am going to give my all for Antwerp and for the campaign once it gets going.”

CD&V last held city hall in Antwerp in 1976, when Leo Delwaide took over as mayor when socialist mayor Lode Craeybeckx died. The last time anyone from the party actually became mayor after an election was in 1921.

Government of Flanders ratifies Paris climate accord

Brussels minister launches campaign against sexual intimidation

The government of Flanders has become the first of Belgium’s governments to ratify the Paris climate agreement, reached last year. The global agreement came into force on 4 November after being ratified by more than 55 of its international signatories, together representing some 55% of greenhouse gas emissions.

Signatories to the treaty pledge to hold the increase in global temperatures to a maximum of two degrees above pre-industrial levels.

It has been signed by 193 countries and ratified by 111 of them.

The European Union negotiated as a bloc and ratified the agreement in October. However, each member state also has to ratify the agreement.

For Belgium, that means the approval of four governments – the

Bianca Debaets, minister for equal opportunities in the Brussels-Capital Region, has launched a new campaign against sexual intimidation. MeldGeweld (Report Violence) calls on witnesses of intimidation against women and the LGBT community to report what they have seen.

The launch of the campaign was accompanied by people dressed as Scrabble tiles spelling out the kind of insults the campaign hopes to tackle – words such as paedo, slut and whore. Because another aspect of the campaign is to present the shock effect of such intimidation to people who may never have had to undergo it.

“Everyone in Brussels who takes violence against women and gays seriously needs to make their voice heard,” Debaets said. “Often if one

federal and three regional. It was that arrangement – brought about by state reforms agreed in 2011 – that led to the crisis over Ceta, the EU’s trade pact with Canada, after the Walloon regional government refused to sign.

None of the four governments shows any sign of rejecting the Paris agreement. Federal energy minister Marie-Christine Marghem announced last week that the federal government is aiming to ratify the agreement by the middle of 2017.

The vote to agree on Flanders’ behalf took place in the Flemish parliament on 16 November – coincidentally at the same time as the UN climate conference in Marrakesh – to unanimous agreement and applause in the chamber. \ AH

meldgeweld.brussels

© Courtesy MeldGeweld

person speaks up, others follow.

That’s how we reach a sustainable change of mentality, and put sexist violence out of action.”

According to the campaign’s research, 30% of women in Brussels have been the victim of violence, and 60% have suffered sexual intimidation. Among the LGBT community, 90% have been the victim of physical or verbal abuse. \ AH

Bourgeois meets with British Brexit minister Flemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois held a meeting in Brussels last week with David Jones, a junior minister in the British government’s department created to arrange the UK’s departure from the European Union, commonly known as Brexit.

The meeting had been arranged in London last month, but had to be postponed to allow Bourgeois to return to Brussels in the midst of the crisis over the signing of the Ceta trade pact with Canada.

The two ministers discussed the historically strong ties between Flanders and the UK, as well as the impact Brexit could have on both economies. Bourgeois, unlike many leaders in Europe, has always argued for maintaining the best possible post-Brexit relations with the UK. “The United Kingdom is an extremely important

© Bruno Fahy/BELGA

Geert Bourgeois (left) and David Jones shake hands at a bilateral meeting in Brussels

trading partner for Flanders: It is our fourthlargest export market, and approximately 87%

of the trade between Belgium and the UK originates from Flanders,” he said. “It is crucial that the trade across the Channel continues to flourish.”

And he repeated his view that negotiations on the UK’s departure should focus on developing a new sort of partnership. “It is of vital importance for Flanders that the ties with the UK remain strong and open, on an economic, cultural and scientific level, as well as a personal level,” he said.

In January, the Flemish representation in London is organising a round table on the impact of Brexit on Flanders, attended by, among others, employers’ federations, agricultural associations and representatives of the Flemish ports. \ AH

\ COVER STORY

november 23, 2016

Finished symphony

The Royal Flemish Philharmonic has sumptuous new surroundings in which to perform ELISABETHCENTER.BE continued from page 1

the hall, and walls clad in undulating oak panelling; bar the ceiling, the whole hall is made of wood. The cavities between the acoustic panels and the concrete walls were filled with lava sand to prevent vibration.

“The great halls of history were all built in masonry, and by the time you got walls tall enough to enclose enough volume, those walls were an arm’s length or more in depth,” Kirkegaard explains. “So when low-frequency sound struck them, they didn’t vibrate at all, but gave full energy back to the room.

The lava sand was designed to provide that solidity that masonry provided in the previous era.”

While acoustic concerns were paramount, architects SimpsonHaugh came up with clever solutions to avoid compromising their aesthetic – resulting in an elegant, light-filled venue that’s a real asset to the city.

“The whole complex is very special,” says Joost Maegerman, the Philharmonic’s general manager. “The integration of the historical wing into the new building with the glass and glazed roof is very impressive.”

Featuring multiple kinds of marble, high ceilings and Art Nouveau flourishes, the centre’s historic halls are set to provide a gracious setting for parties or receptions. Its conference facilities, including 30 meeting rooms, are already doing a swift trade, with 15 confirmed bookings and another 50 being negotiated.

“The new concert hall itself, despite its capacity, feels very cosy and comfortable,” Maegerman adds. “The longest distance from the stage to the seats is 30 metres, which is actually really close.

Everybody in the hall will have a feeling of being really involved with what’s happening on stage.

Most importantly, you can see and hear equally well from every spot.”

The four-storey, 2,000m² complex also houses additional rehearsal space, offices for administration and logistics, a VIP area, cafe and six soundproofed warm-up rooms.

The site has been a classical music hotspot for 120 years.

The Grote Feestzaal, the precursor to the Queen Elisabeth Hall, opened in 1897 to allow the KDMA’s newly created orchestra to entertain Zoological Society members in winter. During the First World War the venue served as a hospital, and during Antwerp’s 1920 Olympics, it hosted boxing and wrestling matches.

Along with the zoo’s other buildings, it sustained serious bomb damage during the Second World War, and after liberation it fell into the hands of the British Army, who turned it into one of Europe’s

ROYALFLEMISHPHILHARMONIC.BE

© Ian Simpson Architects

The new Elisabeth Center Antwerp is also home to the Flanders Meeting & Convention Center and is intertwined with the zoo

biggest dancehalls.

The Second World War put paid to both the zoo’s orchestra and the city’s other headline classical act – the New Concert Society, which was founded in 1903 and became a pre-war fixture thanks to guest conductors like Gustav Mahler, Siegfried Wagner and Richard Strauss.

The Royal Flemish Philharmonic (then known as the Antwerpse Philharmonie) was established in November 1955 to fill the void created by the dissolution of its

centre – later to morph into the Zillion dancehall.

In the 1980s, with the orchestra’s fate hanging in the balance, rumours surfaced that it was to get a dedicated rehearsal room at deSingel arts centre – but it never materialised. The orchestra finally moved to the Elckerlyc Theatre on Frankrijklei that same decade; in 1996, following a musical protest outside the office of the then minister-president of Flanders, it was granted a new rehearsal space: the Filharmo-

firmer ground, with Edo de Waart succeeding van Zweden in 2011.

Today it works with top record labels and performs at leading international venues, including the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna and Salzburg’s Festspielhaus. Its broad repertoire spans Baroque and Romantic music, as well as more contemporary pieces.

Nonetheless, it never stopped pushing for a home of its own – so the move is a dream come true.

“For the first time in our 60-year history, we will be rehearsing,

Everybody in the hall will have a feeling of being really involved with what’s happening on stage famous predecessors. It has been seeking a permanent home ever since.

The Grote Feestzaal, which was relaunched as the Queen Elisabeth Hall in 1960 after major restoration following a fire, provided the orchestra with a stage, but for rehearsals they were forced to make do with a series of cramped and inadequate rooms.

Over the years they schlepped from Cinema Majestic to Café Claridge, Alpaerts Hall (part of the zoo) and the Olympia sports

nisch Huis, in Het Eilandje, where it has remained ever since.

Despite its unsettled existence, the orchestra’s fame has grown steadily since the early 2000s; in recognition of this, it changed its name to deFilharmonie (Royal Flemish Philharmonic) in 2002.

Six years later, the establishment of a formidable conducting triumvirate – Jaap van Zweden as chief conductor, Martyn Brabbins as principal guest conductor and Philippe Herreweghe as principal conductor – put it on much

recording and performing for audiences all in the same top-class concert hall in Antwerp,” Maegerman says.

It’s a crucial step. “If you look around at all the top orchestras in the world, they became great thanks to their concert hall,” he says. “Some of them even changed their name to the name of the hall that made them famous, like the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig.”

The orchestra has 45 concert days

and 100 rehearsal days scheduled each concert season. Following the inaugural concert on 25 November, when Edo de Waart will conduct Strauss’ self-portrait “Ein Heldenleben” and Dvoˇrák’s “Cello Concerto”, December will take in two Mahler symphonies, Beethoven’s feisty “Seventh Symphony” and a Christmasthemed visit from the celebrated Vienna Boys’ Choir.

From March to April, the musical Cats will be dropping in, while in May, German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk play an eight-night residency offering a chronological journey through their back catalogue.

The same month will see a series of concerts marking Philharmonic conductor Philippe Herreweghe’s 70th birthday. Meanwhile, a performance by the laureates of the Brussels-based Queen Elisabeth Competition, which launches a new cello category next year, will close the Philharmonic’s season in June.

Having recently sat in on the Philharmonic’s first rehearsal in the space, Maegerman has high hopes for the venue.

“I was very, very positively surprised, even more than I was expecting after all the predictions,” he says. “I’m convinced that it will be one of the top concert halls in Europe.” Kirkegaard agrees. “I think the people of Antwerp will be delighted with the experience the hall provides.”

\5

\ BUSINESS

week in business Retail Docks Bruxsel The shopping and leisure centre Docks Bruxsel in Brussels is up for sale, less than a month after opening. The project developer Equilis invested €210 million in the 58,000-square-metre complex and hopes to get €300 million in the sale.

Imaging Agfa The Antwerp-based imaging technology group is in negotiations with Germany’s CompuGroup Medical software developer, located in Koblenz, to sell its healthcare division with revenues of some €500 million last year.

Food Tiense Raffinaderij The Tienen-based sugar refinery, owned by the German Sudzucker group, has invested €20 million in a “sugarhub” to streamline packaging and distribution of its products.

Energy Deme The Antwerp-based dredging group has signed a joint venture agreement with China’s Cosco shipping group to develop wind farms off the coast of China. Deme expects the deal could deliver up to €400 million of additional revenue.

Cinema Kinepolis The Ghent-based cinema chain plans to open its Imax cinema in Brussels again after being closed for 11 years. The all-round immersive cinema will be fitted with the latest in laser technology and digital screens.

Agriculture PermaFungi The urban farming project PermaFungi, which grows mushrooms in the cellars of Tour & Taxis, has been awarded the Grand Prize of Future Generations, an award honouring projects working for sustainability in daily life.

Property Cushman & Wakefield Nieuwstraat in Brussels and Meir in Antwerp have tied to make the top of this year’s rankings of the cost of rented retail property, produced

by Cushman & Wakefield.

In both locations, rents are now €1,850 per square metre, compared to €1,775 on Brussels’ Louizalaan shopping street.

\6

Major changes for airport

Construction of longest runway in Europe has residents concerned Alan Hope Follow Alan on Twitter \ @AlanHopeFT

brusselsairport2040.be

P

lans by Brussels Airport to extend one of its runways to become the longest in Europe are causing rumblings of protest in the municipalities of de rand, or the Flemish periphery around Brussels. The plans are part of the airport’s Strategic Vision 2040, announced last week.

A key element of the plan is the extension of runway 25L to a length of four kilometres, an addition of 800 metres, in the direction of Erps-Kwerps. That would allow the runway to be used for take-offs as well as landings.

But local residents fear an increase in aircraft noise, not only because of growth in the number of flights, but also because more people would be affected. According

© Courtesy Brussels Airport

Brussels Airport’s Strategic Vision 2040 includes longer runways, additional terminal space and major renovations of the Brucargo zone

to Eric Van Rompuy, councillor in charge of town planning for Zaventem, where the airport is located, planes would be able to

Proximus runs tests of 5G internet State-owned telecoms company Proximus has begun testing the next generation of super-fast mobile internet. The tests of the 5G system took place last week in Antwerp, but the company has said it will concentrate in future on Brussels.

The new 5G offers speeds up to 100 times faster than the current 4G – as much as 70 GB a second – the equivalent of an entire high-definition film in a matter of seconds. The advance is needed, according to head of technology Geert Standaert, because of the enormous growth in demand for mobile internet.

Smartphones have become the norm as providers offer deep discounts in return for payment plans. And in the near future, with the so-called Internet of Things, apparatus like security cameras, home heating systems and selfdriving cars will use the internet to communicate with each other.

But 5G is only in its early stages, a Proximus spokesperson emphasised. It is not expected to be widely available until 2020. “At that time, the EU wants every member state to have one city that is 5G-ready,” the spokesperson said.

“In Belgium I see the logical choice falling on Brussels, the capital of Europe.” \ AH

E-taxis to hit the streets in five Flemish cities Environmental organisation Bond Beter Leefmilieu (BBL) and taxi federation GTL are working on a plan to introduce electric taxis, or e-taxis, in five Flemish cities. The goal is to have at least 10% of the taxi fleet running on green power by 2020, the organisations have announced.

E-taxis are planned for Antwerp, Leuven, Ghent, Mechelen and Bruges. A pilot project carried out earlier this year in Antwerp and Leuven has shown the challenges and opportunities for more extensive use of e-taxis.

“During the pilot project, we saw that a lack of charging infrastructure and the limited battery duration of the electric vehicles were both a problem,” said Pierre Steenberghen of GTL. “But both taxi drivers and clients were enthusiastic about the handling and comfort of the vehicles.”

BBL pointed out that local governments play an important role in expanding the availability of charging stations and the use of e-taxis

take off directly over the centre of the town, then turn left to fly over Sterrebeek and Tervuren.

“Flights over Brussels could be

limited, with the nuisance being passed on to the eastern periphery,” he told Belga newswire. “That is unacceptable.”

For Frederic Petit, mayor of Wezembeek-Oppem, the extended runway is a means of relieving airlines of the burden of paying fines for noise nuisance. At present, airlines are faced with fines if they do not respect the strict noise limits in force over the capital.

“Brussels Airport Company will avoid that by reducing the number of flights over Brussels and send more planes out over Flanders,” said Petit. “In practice, planes taking off from runway 25L will fly at very low altitude over Sterrebeek, Tervuren, Wezembeek and so on.”

Port House to pay €9 million settlement to contractors The final price tag for the new Havenhuis, or Port House, in Antwerp is €9 million more than expected, after the Port Authority came to a settlement with several contractors last week. The building has now cost €64 million.

“With this settlement, all parties agree to an end to all ongoing legal matters concerning the construction of the Port House,” the Port Authority said in a statement.

The budget for the building, where the Port Authority is housed, was originally set at €49.9 million.

That involved restoration of the 90-year-old fire station and the extension by internationally renowned architect Zaha Hadid.

In the four years since construction kicked off, there have been several disputes with contractors, and the budget had to

© Courtesy Port of Antwerp

increase to €55 million. According to the Antwerp city councillor representing the port, Marc Van Peel, there were eventually lawsuits worth a possible €40 million on top of that.

“With the approval of these additional charges, the contractors concerned are now recompensed for any additional works carried out,” the Port Authority said. “All ongoing claims come to an end.” \ AH

Developer could offer €100m for Trade Mart site at Heizel © Courtesy BBL

in general. “Governments can offer temporary financial assistance to taxi enterprises that want to use e-taxis, help to make them stand out and impose technical requirements on all new taxis,” said BBL’s Jonathan Lambregs. “Taxis are ideal to promote electric vehicles in Flanders as they are very visible in the streetscape.”

Flemish energy minister Bart Tommelein has said that he supports the initiative and pointed out that the government now exempts new owners of electric vehicles from paying the one-time registration tax or the annual road tax. \ Andy Furniere

Ypres-based property developer Ghelamco is reported to have bid €100 million for Trade Mart, the business-to-business retail centre at the foot of the Atomium. The site is on the Heizel plateau, where the Neo shopping and leisure centre is planned, and the city of Brussels had hoped to include it in its plans for Neo. The news was reported by L’Echo from the Mapic commercial property fair in Cannes and has not been officially confirmed. The sum quoted is far above the €65 million value placed on Trade Mart by its co-owner, Brussels-based AG Real Estate, which owns the property 50-50 with Texas-based Crow Holdings.

The complex, covering 200,000 square metres and one of the largest in the world when it opened in 1975, is ideally placed to form the centre of the Neo project, but the inflated offer from Ghelamco is likely to change the city’s plans. A stone’s throw away, Ghelamco is working with the city on the project for a new national sports stadium at Parking C. The Trade Mart complex is home to some 550 distributors of fashion and homewares, attracting 200,000 retailers a year, according to AG Real Estate. It also houses the Atomium’s Art & Design Museum, which opened a year ago. Ghelamco’s plans for the space are not yet known. \ AH

\ INNOVATION

november 23, 2016

Mapping music

week in innovation

Flemish architect launches visual encyclopaedia of 146 years of music Toon Lambrechts More articles by Toon \ flanderstoday.eu

MUSICMAP.INFO

D

o you ever rock around your house to the sounds of new jack swing, but find yourself craving some unfamiliar tunes? Or perhaps you’re into music theory and spend evenings pondering on the connection between post-punk and new wave?

There’s now a place for all your needs. Musicmap is a visual reference that traces the history of every genre of popular music, from 1880 to the present.

At first glance, the website looks like a color-coded bar graph, with each column representing the dominant genres, from blues and jazz to rock’n’roll and folk. Zoom in, and the bars turn into an intricate web linking the countless subgenres, from the familiar Britpop and garage rock to the more ambiguous metalcore and reggaetón.

A click on the subgenre reveals a concise textual overview that places the music style in the social context in which it was born. There is also a brief playlist containing the genre’s most iconic tracks.

The service is the brainchild of Flemish architect Kwinten Crauwels, who spent eight years working on it. “I’ve always had very diverse taste in music and its many genres,” he says. “I’ve looked for a website that would provide a complete and balanced overview of popular music, but I never found it. There are a lot of noteworthy attempts, but most of them focus on specific genres, like rock or electro. So I decided to make one myself.”

But what is an architect doing creating such extensive project devoted to music? “It’s a question I get asked all the time,” he says. “It started as a kind of experiment, a hobby that just got out of hand. Over the years, Musicmap grew organically. In the beginning, I didn’t even know what it would look like.”

Creating a comprehensive interactive map of music history required a lot of research. “I spent hours at the library or on the internet,”

Musicmap includes every major genre of music and breaks each one down into dozens of sub-genres

Crauwels says. “The most important thing was to limit the scope and focus on the essence. Otherwise, it would have taken a lifetime.”

From the get-go, Musicmap was intended as a chart, but Crauwels imagined it to be a printable poster. “It was my brother who convinced me to create a website,” he explains. “In the course of eight years, the technology for projecting online data visually has grown immensely. Still, I never anticipated that Musicmap would become what it is now – with all the text and playlists.”

The website, he continues, has

to use, comprehensive and interactive database that’s accessible and encyclopaedic at the same time.

“The genres are defined in such a way that everyone can understand what they are and where they come from. This is what makes Musicmap unique.”

The project has received worldwide attention. “It’s nice to see the different ways in which music appeals to people, be it in Belgium or in Japan.

From the reaction I get, it is clear that Musicmap fulfils a need. This is something people have been waiting for.”

The website went live in July, but Crauwels’ has greater ambitions.

tool for discovering new music.”

The service has been compared with streaming services like Spotify, but Crauwels says Musicmap is different. “The total amount of music recorded continues to grow, and everything’s digital, so we need more intelligent ways of searching for it. Most of the services work with algorithms that suggest similar songs to the ones you already like. That works fine – and the algorithms are getting better and better – but it is a passive way of finding music, because you stay in the same genre.”

Musicmap, he says, is a welcome addition to these services. “It lets

The most important thing was to limit the scope and focus on the essence. Otherwise, it would have taken a lifetime room to grow. “Differentiating between music genres in not an exact science. There is still room for improvement, but I’m very happy with the result.”

He describes Musicmap as an easy

“Building a community around Musicmap is an option, but this might be difficult,” he says. “Defining genres is a complex issue, and people tend to have very divergent opinions. Above all, Musicmap is a

you discover genres that you might have never heard of. Musicmap is a journey without a starting point, an invitation to get lost in the immense and fascinating universe of popular music.”

Children in Benelux are ‘alarmingly’ reckless online Children in the Benelux countries – Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg – are more reckless on the internet than their foreign peers, according to a large-scale survey requested by internet security company Kaspersky Lab. The survey was carried out among 5,000 youngsters between 10 and 15 years of age in the Benelux, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

Four out of 10 children in the Benelux have made no agreements with their parents concerning surfing the internet. As a result, they come across content that is not meant for youngsters of their age more often than their counterparts in other countries.

More concerning, one in four indicated that

they sometimes come across porn – the highest percentage of all the countries.

The Benelux youngsters also admitted to taking revenge online in alarmingly large numbers, with some 80% saying they had posted something hurtful about another youngster. In Germany and France, fewer than 20% said they took part in such an activity.

According to Dirk Depover of Brussels-based non-profit Child Focus, parents have got to pay more attention to their kids’ digital use. “Just like they teach their children to behave safely in traffic and eat healthily, parents have a responsibility to educate their children about online matters,” he said. \ Andy Furniere

Digital glasses tackle ageing vision A Ghent start-up has raised €1.4 million to develop intelligent digital glasses for people with decreasing vision. Presbyopia is associated with the ageing of the eye, which leads to decreasing ability to focus on close objects, from about the age of 45. People with presbyopia often use reading glasses, but because these don’t help in all conditions there are also specific glasses for computer work, driving and sports. EYEco eyeCO, a spin-off from Ghent University and Leuven-based nanotech research centre imec, is developing glasses that will electronically correct the sight over the whole surface of the lenses. With the money raised, it will now create a first product.

Bacteria-infused courgette cleans up soil Researchers at Hasselt University (UHasselt) have found three kinds of bacteria that can help courgette plants to clean up the toxic substance DDE in soil more efficiently. DDE, a chemical compound formed by the breakdown of the now illegal DDT, is still present in the soil of many fields and gardens, posing a danger to the health of animals and humans, particularly affecting the nervous system. For her PhD, UHasselt researcher Nele Eevers examined how courgettes can be used to clean soil polluted with DDE. She found that courgettes with added bacteria can remove three times more DDE from the soil than those without them.

Ketnet show wins media literacy award The TV programme Boeva & the games, seen on children’s broadcaster Ketnet, has won the first M-Award for media-literate media production, given by Mediawijs, the Flemish Knowledge Centre for Media Literacy. Boeva offers youngsters a unique insight into the world of digital gaming, as comedian William Boeva tries out new games with kids, professionals and celebrities. “It’s a mix between education and entertainment for children but we also wanted to reach adults,” Maarten Janssen of Ketnet told VRT. The goal of Mediawijs’ M-Awards is to increase the visibility of initiatives that help people to become more aware of the effects of digital media. Video-blog contest Weetewa and a literacy game by research project AdLit were also honoured. \ AF

© Ingimage

\7

\ EDUCATION

november 23, 2016

Ready, yet, go

week in education

A kick-start for young Brussels entrepreneurs and youth employment Andy Furniere More articles by Andy \ flanderstoday.eu

YET.BRUSSELS

B

y 2025, all youngsters in the Brussels-Capital Region should understand what it means to be an entrepreneur – that’s the ambition of the regional government. To help achieve that goal, the government has established the Young Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow (Yet) initiative, which recently selected four projects to receive funding.

By encouraging entrepreneurship, the Brussels government wants to battle the high unemployment rate among youngsters – 28.2% according to the latest statistics. About one in five Brusselaars aged between 18 and 24 is not in work, education or training.

“Youngsters from technical and professional education have a lot of potential to become self-employed, but they aren’t sufficiently aware of the possibilities,” says Annelore Isaac, manager of information and networking at Brussels enterprise agency Impulse.

The Brussels government founded Yet at the start of the year, giving it an annual budget of €550,000. One of its main tasks was to increase the visibility of existing initiatives for young entrepreneurs and encourage them to work together. The Yet website currently lists about 70 projects from 30 organisations.

But with the largest part of its budget, €400,000, Yet is subsidising large-scale initiatives selected through an annual project call. The first winners of these subsidies were recently announced: Boost Your Talent, Jump Zo, UStart Belgium and Positive Generation.

Yet’s work is based on the experience gained through the predecessor of the current Boost Your Talent project. The previous project, which ran from 2008 to 2015, focused on the canal zone in Brussels – still an

© Impulse.brussels

Virginie Losson at the Yet launch event in Brussels earlier this month

economically underdeveloped area – and received its budget through the European Regional Development Fund. Its former co-ordinator Virginie Losson now manages the Yet project.

“The results of the previous Boost Your Talent project helped us to get our priorities straight,” she says. “We noticed that we didn’t reach enough teachers, who are essential in motivating youngsters, and also that the potential of secondary school students in technical and professional education remained underdeveloped.”

To be selected, the projects had to have the expertise to set up workshops that encourage students’ creativity and self-knowledge. “These are essential skills, not only in setting up a company but in acquiring an entrepreneurial attitude, which helps you take the initiative more as an employee and in life in general,” says Losson.

The people behind Yet believe it’s important for initiatives to involve experienced entrepreneurs who can inspire young people, help them try out a concrete enterprise scheme and promote sustainable entrepre-

neurship that is beneficial to society. Projects should also battle stereotypes against women and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The updated Boost Your Talent project will now use its knowhow to raise more awareness among secondary school students in tech-

Step2You, 100,000 entrepreneurs, YouthStart and C-Davy.

The only completely Dutch-speaking winner in the project call is Jump Zo, set up by the non-profit Tracé Brussel, organisation for the self-employed Unizo and the agency for entrepreneurial training Syntra Brussel. The project will provide workshops to students in the third grade of technical and professional education and those in part-time education.

“Jump Zo will provide assistance about entrepreneurship to young people outside the school environment,” says Losson. “For our next call, we want to concentrate more on reaching these youngsters who no longer go to school.” Jump Zo will also inform teachers and coaches of youngsters outside school about entrepreneurship.

The other two subsidised projects, UStart Belgium and Positive Generation, primarily focus on Frenchlanguage education for the moment.

UStart is a student entrepreneur club

Next, we’ll concentrate on youngsters who are no longer in school nical and professional education, those in part-time education and students at university colleges. It will also develop training for students in teacher training, to ensure that future teachers are aware of the importance of entrepreneurship skills.

Instead of focusing on the canal zone, the initiative will cover the whole Brussels-Capital Region. It mostly caters to French-speaking education, but works for a Dutch-speaking target group in part-time education. The partners in the project are Groupe One, Les Jeunes Entreprises,

which until now only set up actions in universities but will now also raise awareness about entrepreneurship in Brussels university colleges. The project is organised by UStart, Ichec management school and the start-up C-Davy.

Positive Generation will encourage youngsters to take action, by organising workshops or inspirational talks by entrepreneurs, to put social and sustainable entrepreneurship in the spotlight at university colleges.

The two partners are Poseco and MakeSense.

Q&A Kerryn Krige of the Gordon Institute of Business Science at the University of Pretoria is visiting Flanders this week to explore new university partnerships in social entrepreneurship.

What are you working on?

We are carrying out a mapping study to identify social enterprises in South Africa. These organisations can look very different, but the thing they have in common is that they generate an income stream through the delivery of a product or service that has a social value attached to it. It’s been extremely tricky because they don’t have a distinct legal structure. So, how do you identify something that technically doesn’t exist?

Where do you start?

This year we published a book [The Disruptors: Social Entrepreneurs

reach and the more rigorous your results.

Reinventing Business and Society], which profiled 18 social entrepreneurs across the country. We needed to write the book so that we could figure out a working definition of what we are looking for.

Data collection will begin in early 2017.

Do you already have links with Flanders?

I’m doing my PhD at the University of Leuven. And the government of Flanders has been exceptional in funding and promoting the development of social entrepreneurship as a model of social and economic change in South Africa.

What kind of research partnerships are you looking for?

We want to work with universities who can bring value to the process.

And obviously with any mapping study, the more money you have in the pot, the more people you can

Do you have something specific in mind?

Those are the conversations that I’m hoping to have now: How can people add value to the process and how can we add value to their work? It might be by making our data available for people to build on their research, or by strengthening partnerships between entrepreneurship centres in Flanders and South Africa.

Outside of research, there are always opportunities in teaching and student exchanges. There’s a lot that we can learn from experiencing each other’s environments, contexts and interpretations. \ Interview by Ian Mundell

M decree criticised by children’s commissioner

The M decree, which has seen pupils from Flanders’ special education mainstreamed into regular education since the beginning of the 2015 academic year, has not yet led to a coherent policy, said Flanders’ children’s rights commissioner, Bruno Vanobbergen. To enable inclusive education, regular schools were required to carry out “reasonable adjustments”, such as providing specific software for students with dyslexia or employing a sign-language interpreter for deaf students.

According to Vanobbergen, both schools and parents have had difficulties determining whether measures taken fulfil the requirement of “reasonable adjustment”. Vanobbergen has called for a reference framework on reasonable adjustments.

Too many students in veterinary studies Education minister Hilde Crevits has said that she is in favour of a non-binding entrance exam for veterinary studies in higher education.

The exam is being considered as a way to reduce the surplus of vets on the labour market, according to the Flemish Information Centre for Agri- and Horticulture (Vilt). Each year, between 400 and 500 students start veterinarian studies, offered only at the universities of Ghent and Antwerp. According to Flemish MP Koen Daniëls, there is a surplus of trained veterinarians, forcing many graduates to seek work abroad. MP Ann Brusseel argued that a surplus of veterinarians affects the wages and the quality of care and studies.

Orientation test for secondary students All final-year secondary students will be able to take a test after the Christmas holidays that will point them towards the best higher education course. By examining their strengths and weaknesses, the Columbus test provides non-binding advice on the higher education course that best suits them. Last year, 8,000 final-year pupils took a pilot version of the test, but it will now be available to all students. It was developed by the Flemish universities and the region’s university colleges, making it the first tool of its kind in Flanders not linked to one particular institution.

In the long term, the test will be obligatory for all final-year pupils in secondary education, but the results will be nonbinding. \ AF

\9

\ LIVING

week in activities Nocturnes van de Zavel Usher in the holiday season with four nights of festive shopping, entertainment and tasty treats on this popular Brussels square. Stores are open late, and the square will be decorated with Christmas trees and lights. Covered tent with champagne and cocktail bar, live music and free carriage rides. 24-27 November, Grote Zavel, Brussels; free \ lesnocturnesdusablon.com

Stormtocht Sea, sand and dunes…

Bundle up and enjoy a bracing walk along the Flemish coast during this 28th annual organised walk. Choose from six, 12 or 21km routes.

Mulled wine provided along the way. Start between 8.00 and 15.00, finish by 18.00. 27 November, Zaal Forum, Kerkstraat 66, Blankenberge; €1.50 \ stormtocht.be

Day of the Craftsman This nationwide event gives working artists and skilled craftspeople a chance to share their passion with the public. Meet men and women working in fields as diverse as ceramics, traditional building methods, metalwork, textiles, custom bikes, and graphic design. Search the website for crafts­people in your area. 27 November, across Flanders; free \ dagvandeambachten.be

AWC Christmas Market

Get a head start on your holiday shopping at the American Women’s Club of Brussels’ annual Christmas market at their clubhouse.

Exclusive vendors, crafter’s village, glühwein, holiday treats, food trucks and…

Santa himself ! 26-27 November, Ahornlaan 1, Sint-Genesius-Rode (Flemish Brabant); free \ awcb.org

Happy birthday Royal Museums The Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels are celebrating their 215th anniversary with a day of free admission and activities for all ages: guided tours, drawing sessions, a chance to peek into the store rooms and restoration workshop, live music and more. 27 November 11.00-18.00, Regentschaapsstraat 3, Brussels; free \ fine-arts-museum.be

\ 10

The same, but different

Ghent’s Equality Festival looks for connections, celebrates diversity Daan Bauwens More articles by Daan \ flanderstoday.eu

F

or three days and three nights, the Vooruit art centre in Ghent is hosting Festival van de Gelijkheid (Equality Festival). The numerous talks and debates are intended to offer hope in these despairing times.

Young thinkers Rutger Bregman – a Dutch historian – and Alicja Gescinska – a Polish/Belgian philosopher – debate contemporary society’s many flaws and the ways to fix them. The renowned Flemish international affairs professor Rik Coolsaet and the equally legendary war journalist Rudi Vranckx host a debate on despair and terror.

Other talks deal with the questionable use of prisons, our treatment of refugees, the issues of privacy, the discriminatory taxing of singles and – of course – climate change. For the first time in four years, the festival leaves the safety of Vooruit and steps into the city.

At a branch of the ethical bank Triodos, young professionals are hosting a debate on the notion of “degrowth”, while Sphinx cinema is screening documentaries by local and international filmmakers. The real eye-catcher here is

FESTIVALGELIJKHEID.BE

The festival offers a wide range of subjects, but “equality remains our main focus,” says An Pauwels, from the organising association Curieus.

“It’s been our explicit goal to be as broad as possible. Working on this subject over the last four years, we have found that there’s no facet of life that isn’t affected by equality, or rather, the lack of it.

Hence the many themes and the increasing number of art disciplines that we’re hosting.”

Among these disciplines are street art and literature. British artist Ben Wilson creates miniature street art on the city’s paved

Real equality isn’t possible if we don’t celebrate our differences Flemish filmmaker Pieter-Jan De Pue’s award-winning The Land of the Enlightened, a docu-drama about Afghan children coming to terms with the war ravaging their country.

stones, using nothing but chewing gum.

The Backstay Hostel, across the road from Vooruit, is preparing its beds for read-aloud sessions with some of Flanders’ most

©

Ing

im

ag e

renowned writers, including Peter Verhelst, Lize Spit and Heleen Debruyne. Visitors who fall asleep during the last session of each day will wake up the next morning to breakfast.

The Empty Shop in the traveller’s corner of the Backstay Hostel is selling clothes donated by the festival’s visitors, with proceeds going towards planting a new forest. The nightly Poetry Slam at the Backstay Café is another

1-3 December

novelty of the festival, giving the stage to some of the finest rappers in Flanders.

Vooruit’s winter garden, meanwhile, is being turned into a barber shop – all cut hair will be made into wigs for chemotherapy patients.

If the debates on climate change and the penitentiary system only aggravate your angst , the festival offers enough positive alternatives to ensure that everyone goes home with a bit of hope. “We want to change people’s minds for the better, not sour them,” says Pauwels.

While equality has many forms, there is only one way of defining it, she claims. “Everyone needs to have the same opportunities when starting out in life.

That doesn’t mean we all need to be the same, but we must be given equal chances, whatever our needs, passions and dreams, or the language we speak. Real equality isn’t possible if we don’t celebrate our differences.”

Across Ghent

BITE Celebrity chef Giovani Oosters releases special winter jenever

FACEBOOK.COM/GLUHJENEVER

Chef Giovani Oosters is a household name in Hasselt, home of his celebrated restaurant Vous-lé-Vous and of Het Smaaksalon, a brasserie in the city centre that showcases local products under his guidance.

Not one to rest on his culinary laurels, last year Oosters limited Vous-lé-Vous’ opening hours – thus voluntarily giving up his Michelin star – to cut back on his time in the kitchen and focus on other projects.

One of those project bore fruit a few weeks ago, when he introduced his unique Glühjenever during Hasselt’s annual Jenever Festival. As the name implies, Glühjenever is a cross between glühwein, or mulled wine, and jenever, the ginlike spirit for which Hasselt is well known.

Oosters came up with the idea while looking for something to serve in his restaurant alongside coffee during the winter months. “I first thought of glühwein, but that doesn’t fit with my philos-

Giovani Oosters (centre) has combined glühwein and jenever

ophy,” says the chef. “In the kitchen, we work with as many local products as possible, and jenever is, of course, the premier regional product of Hasselt. By changing the basis of glühwein to jenever, we added a local flavour to this traditional drink.”

The artisanal drink is produced by the Limburg

distillery De Korhaan using a handmade distillate of herbs and spices. It can be served either warm or cold, but warm is recommended.

In the glass, it has a warm, rosy colour, and it smells enticingly of winter spices, red fruit and orange peel. It’s not too sweet and has a milder, fresher taste than mulled wine. At 16% alcohol by volume, it’s stronger than glühwein but not as strong as jenever.

Oosters has big plans for his Glühjenever.

He thinks that it will be popular not only in Limburg, but throughout Belgium. And from there, he hopes to market it abroad in popular ski areas like Austria and Switzerland. “Such a drink would be the perfect warm-up in a mountain lodge,” he says.

Glühjenever can be found at Oosters’ restaurants, as well as grocery chains Alvo, Spar and Carrefour. The striking black stoneware bottle retails for €28.50. \ Diana Goodwin

november 23, 2016

The joy of giving

week in arts & CULTURE

Bruzz charity drive gives boost to groups that help people with disabilities Ellie Mears More articles by Ellie \ flanderstoday.eu

BRUZZ.BE

This year’s Brussel Helpt raises money for non-profit organisations that aim to improve the lives of disabled people in Belgium.

L

iving in a bustling city like Brussels presents enormous challenges for people with disabilities. Everyday activities such as taking the metro, responding to emails or going to the pub with friends can be stressful and time-consuming.

The most routine tasks require a disproportionate level of planning.

“Take public transport,” says Sara Luyckfasseel, a counsellor at the non-profit organisation Indivo.

“When it’s running on time, most of us can get across Brussels pretty quickly. But people with learning difficulties need to overcome various hurdles before they are able to use the system effectively.”

They have to cross busy streets and find the right stop, she continues, “make sure they have enough change for a ticket, find the right platform, remember which tram they need to catch and get out at the correct stop.”

If they use the same route regularly, she continues, it is often possible to learn these steps by heart. “But when a bus stop is moved temporarily, or a metro station isn’t in service, it can throw their whole journey off course”.

Likewise, for blind and sightimpaired people, ordinary tasks such as getting dressed, using household appliances or looking after a baby can seem insurmountable if they do not receive the right support and training.

Another organisation, the Brailleliga, helps the blind and sightimpaired to lead independent lives by providing tailored, one-toone support. Occupational therapists teach vital techniques and coping strategies, enabling visually impaired Brussels residents to cook at home, manage their money and time, care for children and make their way around the city.

The Brailleliga’s Vocational Training Centre provides bespoke training in subjects like office technology, foreign languages, reception management and telemarketing, culminating in qualifications that can lead to a job. Meanwhile, staff at its Consultation and Guidance Centre help the visually impaired to explore career opportunities, taking into account each person’s abilities and physical limitations.

Brailleliga also has a library stocked with braille and audio books, as well as a games lending library offering board games designed for people with differing levels of sight. The organisation relies on donations from the public for almost 80% of its fund-

Cinema for refugees wins Flemish Culture Prize Pop-up cinema project Cinemaximiliaan has won this year’s Flemish Culture Prize for Social-Cultural work. The organisation was launched by two volunteers – a historian and a visual artist – following the break-up of the refugee camp in Maximiliaanpark in Brussels in 2015. It provides film screenings at refugee facilities across the country and organises exhibitions and debates featuring refugee artists. It also arranges trips to museums and other cultural activities for refugees. “Cinemaximilaan’s passion and commitment is commendable,” said culture minister Sven Gatz, who awarded the prize.

“Founded out of a sympathetic concern, the organisation’s enthusiasm strengthens and inspires our entire society.” Each Flemish Culture Prize, awarded in a number of categories throughout the year, is worth €10,000.

Bowie altarpiece to be loaned to Rubens House © Courtesy Bruzz

ing.

Indivo, meanwhile, also arranges holidays across Belgium for those with a physical or mental disability. These include trips to the sea, and more active trips to the Ardennes. The staff provide varying levels of support to holidaymakers, depending on the nature of their disability.

“A typical trip with us is not so different from any other holiday,” explains Luyckfasseel. “We go on various outings, enjoy ice creams on a terrace, have barbeques in the garden of our holiday home or just spend time relaxing in the sunshine.”

ing with a hobby coach, who will assess their needs and help them take on new activities in their spare time. The organisation is officially recognised by the Flemish Agency for People with a Disability.

This year’s Brussel Helpt, the holiday charity drive organised by Brussels Dutch-language media group Bruzz, is raising money for Indivo and the Brailleliga. From now until early December, volunteers will be hosting fundraising events across the capital, including book sales, concerts and talks.

Both Indivo and the Brailleliga rely on donations to carry out their

When a bus stop is moved temporarily, or a metro station isn’t in service, it can throw their whole journey off course Indivo, which serves between 150 and 200 people a year, also arranges outings and activities closer to home, such as picnics, bowling and cinema trips. “During our activities, no one is focused on their disability – we just aim to have fun,” says Luyckfasseel.

“I always go home happy when I know the participants have had a good time”.

Individuals with a disability living in the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde area can also arrange a free meet-

vital services. According to Luyckfasseel, Indivo will put the funding it receives towards material for outings and holidays, as well as subsidising the cost of participation in the organisation’s regular activity groups.

Bruzz is organising Brussel Helpt in collaboration with the capital’s 21 Flemish community centres, its Dutch-language libraries and Muntpunt, the Flemish library and information centre on Muntplein. Bruzz editor-in-chief Jeroen

Roppe says the two organisations will be a focus for the media group throughout the campaign.

“Many people in Brussels are disabled, but I think most residents aren’t really aware of how they experience the city,” he says.

“Everything is different, everything is difficult. These people have enormous problems when it comes to mobility and participating in public life.”

The campaign, he adds, aims to raise awareness of the problems faced by disabled and blind people, and make Brussels more accessible to them. There are many ways to get involved in Brussel Helpt.

The simplest is to make an online donation. You can also take part in the dozens of fundraising events.

Highlights include a “jukebox party” where you can grab a hot meal and dessert and try your hand at origami; a craft afternoon for children at CC Den Dam; an exclusive concert by Flemish rock band Black Box Revelation; and a screening of Tine Vanhee’s #We are Kabul!, a documentary following the lives of five Afghan women.

Brussel Helpt is also encouraging supporters to organise their own fundraising events via an online volunteering platform. Right from the comfort of home, you can pay to have your favourite song played on 89.8 FM. The fundraising drive comes to an end with a concert at Ancienne Belgique, featuring artists-in-residence Stikstof, known for their experimental hip-hop with an authentic Brussels vibe. They’ll be joined by Belgian afro-pop queen Zap Mama.

The altarpiece dedicated to Saint Catherine by the 16th-century Italian master Jacopo Tintoretto is being loaned to Antwerp’s Rubens House.

The monumental piece was part of David Bowie’s personal art collection and was purchased at a recent auction at Sotheby’s in London for €222,000. The new owner has agreed to loan the Tintoretto – the only master in Bowie’s collection – to the Antwerp museum for an exhibition next spring. The painting was commissioned in 1570 by the San Gimignano Church in Venice, where it remained until the church was demolished in 1807. A rendition of the work features in the Italian sketchbook made by Anthony Van Dyck in the 1620s.

Van Rompuy lends voice to new album Former Belgian prime minister Herman Van Rompuy, also known for producing some fine haiku, has lent his voice to the new album Puur Deluxe (Pure Deluxe) by the Dutch singer Dana Winner. It is a remix of the popular album Puur that she released earlier this year; the new album includes six English-language bonus tracks and the new song “De liefde wint altijd” (Love Always Wins), which features Van Rompuy voicing one of his poems. Winner wrote the song in response to the terrorist attacks in Brussels and Zaventem last March. \ danawinner.nl

\ 11

Top-level universities

CV checks

Visits to EU institutions

Career advice from EU professionals

The Bulletin and ING Belgium invite you to a seminar on

ESTATE PLANNING • Marc Quaghebeur,

partner, De Broeck/Van Laere and Partners, « Make the best of your wealth »

• Alexandre Caudron and Frederic Helsen,

December 6, 2016

ING Head Office – Marnix. Entrance via Rue de Trône, 1 – 1000 Brussels (nearest subway station: Trône)

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

notaries, Berquin, “An update on the latest legal changes”

• Dave Deruytter,

head of Expatriates and non-residents, ING Bank Belgium, “ Getting your Estate Planning priorities right as an Expat in Belgium.”

Free entry • Register before December 2nd at www.xpats.com/realestate

\ ARTS

november 23, 2016

Roelandt Savery, credited with being the first animal artist and portraitist, represented paradise through predator and prey living in harmony

© C Devleeschauwer

Animal instincts

Exhibition in France showcases Flemish Baroque influence on animals in art Sarah Crew More articles by Sarah \ flanderstoday.eu

An exhibition in Cassel brings together nine Flemish Baroque artists who spearheaded the animal art movement in Europe.

T

he landmark exhibition Odyssey of Animals lives up to its title in providing a compelling journey into a neglected and underrated body of European art. Its focus on a group of inter-related Flemish artists explores a fascinating period in which the genre of animal art was established.

Bringing together some 90 works

by Flemish Baroque artists, it is the first comprehensive study of the subject. From paradisiacal scenes where predators and prey cohabit in seamless harmony, to hunting trophies, still lifes of fish, game and bountiful market produce, the subject matter is highly original as well as appealing to a wide audience, including children.

The Musée de Flandre in Cassel has forged a reputation in showing major exhibitions of Flemish art since re-opening six years ago.

Dedicated to showcasing the rich culture of the region, the historical building lies in a picturesque hilltop village only 15 kilometres from the Westhoek region of Flanders.

For curator Sandrine VézilierDussart, the show shines a light on some neglected artists as well as on an overlooked genre. “Their role was very important and, while their work may have been considered a sub-genre, it had a considerable influence on French and English artists to come,” she says.

Vézilier-Dussart is on a mission to raise the profile of these paint-

ers. “They were avant-garde as they were more than animal artists; another aim of this exhibition is to encourage scholarship among art historians.”

Nine artists are represented, including Peter Paul Rubens, the most famous Flemish painter of his age.

He was part of the Antwerp School, and his works symbolise the power and influence of the port city.

Antwerp’s rich history is an important subtext, whether forming the backdrop to paintings or via the patronage of its affluent citizens.

Another theme is the mutual influence these artists had on each other.

Most artists have their own dedicated cabinet or section in the exhibition, presented primarily in chronological order. It opens with Kortrijk-born Roelandt Savery who is credited with being the first animal artist and portraitist.

His representations of paradise on earth, full of both exotic and farmyard animals, are a perfect introduction: appealing, colourful and with a fun twist as visitors search for his signature emblem, the dodo.

The creature, which disappeared in the 17th century, was a fashionable motif for the period.

Realism and precise representation of the natural world was prevalent among this generation of artists, and they painted animals from live models as well as books to help render lifelike such notoriously difficult subjects. Savery was invited to Prague by Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II to sketch the animals of his court, which included a dodo.

Similar opportunities to draw from live studies, thanks to the nobility’s penchant for private menager-

MUSEEDEFLANDRE.LENORD.FR

ies, were also afforded many of his fellow artists. One of Savery’s most striking portraits is of two horses in dressage positions, set to a stunning, dark blue background.

Prolific landscape and still life painter Jan Brueghel the Elder also produced fantastical paradise scenes, such as his frequently reproduced “The Entry of the Animals into Noah’s Ark”. Harmonious co-habitation among predators and their prey was a common char-

game and other produce, display the wealth of the period, one reason why such scenes were popular among the bourgeoisie. Recurring motifs include domestic dogs and pups plus a combination of live and dead produce.

Snyders’ detailed knowledge of birdlife in Flanders is evident in the plumage in “Concert of Birds”. A barn owl, surrounded by a variety of exotic and everyday birds, attempts to instil order on a discordant

© Musée des Beaux arts et d’archéologie

Paul de Vos’ “Two Young Seals on a Beach”

acteristic; an optimistic outlook on the world order.

The artist’s moniker “Velvet Brueghel” was testimony to his skill at painting rich and delicate textures, evident in the fine detail accorded each animal. His grandson is represented by a miniature of a mouse, an example of the mode for miniatures, thanks to the recent invention of the microscope.

One of the most influential animal artists of the 17th century was Frans Snyders. His dramatic hunting scenes and still lifes played a key role in the development of the genre. Depictions of abundant market stalls brimming with fish,

cacophony.

Snyders was not limited to still lifes.

His fable-like “Dead Lion”, previously attributed to Paul de Vos, is a reversal of the natural order in showing the final death throes of the chief predator of the animal kingdom overrun by hares. It’s a morality lesson for the nobility: Humility has a role alongside power.

The little-known Jan Fyt was similarly prolific. A rival to Rubens and student of Snyders, he was a virtuoso of hunting trophies, preferring

Until 22 January

the familiarity of European animals to those from foreign shores. His detailed still lifes are more refined than those of his master, yet there are significant links between the two artists.

The backgrounds are minimalist and distant, as in the masterpiece “The Fish Market”, which shows Antwerp’s ramparts in the distance, reflected onto the Scheldt river.

Freshwater and seawater fish spill over the quayside while gleeful cats prepare to feast.

The artificial light lends an abstract and fantastical quality to the work with an illusion of perspective. It reinforces the powerful influence of the port city.

Snyders’ brother-in-law, Paul de Vos, is a similarly under-appreciated artist. His entire body of work was dedicated to animal art – ferocious and grandiose scenes destined for large civic halls. Many continued in the style of Snyder, hence the frequent misattribution.

“Two Young Seals on a Beach” is a peaceful and appealing scene with a collection of decorative shells in the foreground, possibly painted from a curiosity cabinet collection. The seals are part fantasy, their front paws more similar to a sea lion’s, while the painting of the soft folds of their fur is a triumph.

Odyssey of Animals offers an insight into a period of discovery and invention in which patronage by nobility enabled artists to contribute to a new understanding of the natural world.

Musée de Flandre

26 Grand’Place, Cassel, France

\ 13

\ ARTS

Short and sweet

Frederik Willem Daem wins debut prize for short stories that seem like movies Rebecca Benoot More articles by Rebecca \ flanderstoday.eu

Frederik Willem Daem has won this year’s debut prize awarded by Boek.be for a collection of short stories that make good use of his film school studies.

E

very year at Antwerp’s Boekenbeurs, literary association Boek.be awards a prize to the best fiction debut by a Flemish author. Frederik Willem Daem won this year’s prize with a collection of short stories in which he portrays a wide array of characters, styles and settings.

Before this debut collection, Daem had written for literary magazines such as Das Magazin, Revisor, De Gids and Oogst, as well as a study of artist Rinus Van De Velde.

But he insists writing wasn’t something he intended to do.

“Initially I wanted to be a film director, and I ended up at RITCS art school in Brussels, where I studied screenwriting,” he says. “For me the story was ready as soon as I got it on paper; it didn’t necessarily have to be turned into a movie.”

During his studies, Daem (pictured) met Dutch author Willem Jan Otten, who was teaching at RITCS. Daem was working on some stories at the time. “They were more prose than real screenplays,” he says. “For my thesis I decided to write a novel under Willem Jan’s guidance, because it just felt right. But I never finished that novel. I started writing short stories instead.”

Daem was working part time when he started writing, leaving him only three days a week to work on the novel. But in any case, he soon realised his attention span was too short to commit to it. “I had a lot of ideas, so I started writing short stories, aiming to write one a month.”

The result was Zelfs de vogels vallen (Even the Birds Fall), a filmic collection of stories full of vibrant dialogue and larger-than-life characters in international settings that portray the darker side of life.

An American televangelist who is shot, a doomed relationship in Paris, a police chase live on TV, resentment in space and a suffocating child are just a few of the scenes from

© Johan Jacobs

this collection of realistic little universes.

“I love the challenge of creating an intricate world in such a limited number of pages,” Daem explains. “There were also so many things I wanted to try. I experimented with diary fragments, male and female protagonists... I’d otherwise have had to spread them over the course of multiple novels and

years. Short stories are the quickest way to become a better writer.”

His experimental nature is what makes Zelfs de vogels vallen so special. By combining stories written in dialect or from the point of view of a child, and even an interview, Daem has created a contemporary mix of styles and voices, including his own.

They travel the globe, hopping from Flanders to the US, with stops in France and Spain.

“I usually start off with an idea, then I look for the best way to develop the story.

When I started writing a story about two astronauts in space, I didn’t know it would become a diary, but that was the only way to convey such feelings of disdain.”

The combination of such diverse themes and subjects gives the author the chance to do a lot of research, which is something he relishes. “I love the aspect of self-enrichment,” he says. “I could have easily set that story in a basement, but by choosing space I had the excuse to learn a lot more about my subjects by watching hours of footage of the International Space Station.”

His endeavours, including creating all the covers of the first edition by hand, earned him the debut prize. It’s a huge and unexpected honour, he says, especially as it was awarded for a collection of short stories.

“Receiving a prize like this gave me peace of mind that my work wasn’t for nothing, and that it is in fact appreciated by my peers,” he admits. “I hope it’s the beginning of a beautiful career.”

His film studies gave him a knack for dialogue and a contemporary visual urban flair, and film is definitely something Daem wants to do somewhere along the line. But right now, he is working on something new.

“I’ve been looking for a while for a form in which I can say everything I want to say.

I want to experiment with language and narratives; I guess you could call it a novel or a collection of stories with a connecting narrative, and it might also be a little essaylike.”

The only thing he’s sure of, he says, “is that with my first book I had a general idea of what a book had to be like, and with my second I feel a lot freer, like I can do something completely different. Something that’s my own.”

Zelfs de vogels vallen ( in Dutch by WPG

) is published

More new books this month Yucca • Peter Terrin (De Bezige Bij) Award-winning Flemish author Peter Terrin has written a melancholic pageturner in which he elaborates on the lives of some of his beloved past characters. Viktor leaves prison after 11 years and doesn’t seem to fit in a world that once condemned him for the death of his child. Artist Renée changes lives with her work despite suffering a stroke when she was four. Their lives are intertwined, with cataclysmic results.

Er gebeurde dit, er gebeurde dat (This Happened, That Happened • Kristien Hemmerechts (De Geus) In 2015, Flemish professor and novelist Kristien Hemmerechts was diagnosed with breast cancer. She tried to carry on as normally as possible. One of her ways of

\ 14

dealing with this life-changing news was to write about it. Hemmerechts has always been very candid in her work, never sugarcoating tough subjects and always getting to the point. Er gebeurde dit, er gebeurde dat is a prime example of this strength of style. It’s a collection of autobiographical tales about facing cancer, her marriage to the late poet Herman de Coninck and the loss of her infant sons, among other powerful stories.

De fouten (The Faults) • Herman Brusselmans (Prometheus) Herman Brusselmans is back with a trademark parody in De fouten. Johannes Huyghe is planning to publish a biography about Brusselmans’ childhood and adolescence, but Brusselmans himself gets a sneak peek at the book and discovers countless errors.

He naturally decides to right the wrongs, but somewhere along the way the truth is lost as he struggles with the presence and absence of the multiple women in his life.

Funny, absurd and entertaining.

Spoo pee doo • Dimitri Verhulst (Atlas) Dimitri Verhulst is the dark horse of Flemish literature: elusive, provocative and always breathing new life into the most pressing matters. Spoo pee doo was written immediately after the attacks in Paris and deals with terrorism in Europe and the indifference that follows. Are we defending our freedom or our emptiness? Are we defenceless bystanders or did we create these monsters? Verhulst’s only answer is to fight back with beauty, or in this case a poignant and thought-provoking indictment.

\ AGENDA

november 23, 2016

Blinding me with science

CONCERT

Science Day 27 November

Antwerp Pixies: The late ’80s/early ’90s American cult band have not been idle since their comeback in 2014 and are now touring with the longawaited second post-reunion album, Head Carrier, a unique blend of surrealism, psychedelia and surf rock. 25 November 18.30, Lotto Arena, Schijnpoort 119

Across Flanders dagvandewetenschap.be

T

he last Sunday of November is a holiday for the curious. During Dag van de Wetenschap (Science Day), scientists from more than 400 institutions – universities and colleges, museums, observatories, research centres and the private sector – go all out to prove that their disciplines are anything but dull.

One of Science Day’s secrets to success is the unrestrained enthusiasm of both the participants and the visitors, who can see surprising demonstrations, listen to amazing stories and perform experiments themselves – no matter how old they are.

A visit to any of the participating institutions – all of which are free – gives visitors a unique opportunity to peek behind the scenes of the current state of science and technology. If you call in at the Leuven-based company 3D Systems,

for instance, you’ll be immersed in the world of 3D printing, a revolutionary technique that is currently reshaping the manufacturing industry. (And if you’re looking for a job in manufacturing, 3D Systems has a whole shopping list of vacancies.)

Science Day also provides the opportunity to witness how fundamental Flemish scientists are in expanding our horizons. At the Bioinformatics Institute Ghent, part of Ghent University, you can learn everything about the still young discipline that uses mathematics and ICT to interpret the massive load of genetic data the life sciences are producing these days.

Or you can opt for a more jocular course at the labs of the University Hospital of Brussels in Jette.

In a workshop that is good for the whole family, you will learn to take a sample of your own DNA

\ livenation.be

VISUAL ARTS Ghent from your cheek cells and use a method called ethanol precipitation, which forms the sample into long, white tendrils.

But no worries: You get your DNA back after the workshop. You’re even allowed to take it home. \ Senne Starckx

FILM

EVENT

Brussels Cinema Days

Museum Night Gent

30 November to 4 December Brussels Cinema Days is a celebration of contemporary European film, bringing artists from across the continent to show their work and share their ideas.

In addition to nearly 20 screenings crammed into four days, the festival also hosts the European Film Forum, a professional event with panel discussions and work-

Bozar, Brussels bozar.be

shops. The whole thing opens with the premiere of Belgian director Stephan Streker’s much anticipated third feature film. Noces (pictured) follows a Belgo-Pakistani teenager as she attempts to reconcile family tradition – in the form of an arranged marriage – with her Western lifestyle. \ Georgio Valentino

1 December, from 18.00 Museum Night Gent is an afterhours open house, showcasing the breadth and depth of the East Flemish capital’s artistic offerings while entertaining with live concerts, film screenings and other performances. This year, 10 of the city’s top institutions are on board.

One of them is very literally an institution. Museum Dr Guislain

Another World – Laboratory of Illusion and Fantasy: Collection of works by artists who create their own unique passages between worlds, covering two centuries of psychosis, hallucination and illusion. Until 28 May, Dr Guislain Museum, Jozef Guislainstraat 43 \ museumdrguislain.be

DEBATE

Across Ghent degentsemusea.be

is an art museum installed in the city’s former asylum – and next to its current mental health hospital.

Naturally the exhibitions explore perception, psychology and outsider art. Other venues include the historical Sint-Pieter’s Abbey, the encyclopaedic Museum of Fine Arts and the resolutely contemporary Smak. And it’s all for free. \ GV

Ghent Zit het kwaad in elk van ons?

(Is There Evil in All of Us?): Philosopher Johan Braeckman, journalist Barbara Debusschere and Holocaust museum director Christophe Busch discuss whether all everyday people are capable of committing atrocities (in Dutch). 27 November 14.30-16.00, De Bijloke, Jozef Kluyskensstraat 2 \ bijloke.be

MARKET Sint-Niklaas

HOLIDAY

DANCE

Winter Wonders

The Nutcracker

25 November to 1 January Brussels’ annual holiday market celebrates its 16th birthday. Winter Wonders stretches from the Grote Markt past the Beurs, across Anspachlaan and Sint-Katelijneplein, all the way to the towering, 55-metre big wheel at the far end of the Vismarkt. In between you’ll find 260 vendor chalets overflow-

Across Brussels city centre winterwonders.be

ing with souvenirs, crafts, food and drink. There are carousels and an ice-skating rink. The Grote Markt hosts a giant Christmas tree and nightly light show. Another nightly luminous spectacle, this one at the Sint-Katelijne church, celebrates 150 years of diplomatic relations between Belgium and Japan. \ GV

7 January, 14.00 The quintessential holiday ballet comes to Ostend for a weekend matinee not to be missed. The tale of doll intrigue, conceived by German fantasy writer ETA Hoffmann, had been floating around Europe for nearly a century before it was set to Tchaikovsky’s timeless score and Marius Petipa’s

get tic

kets n ow

Kursaal, Ostend kursaaloostende.be

graceful choreography. It proved the perfect storm of wintertime whimsy. Since its premiere in St Petersburg in 1892, the piece has become the world’s most loved ballet. This production is put on by the National Opera of Ukraine and boasts fairy-tale sets and elaborate costumes galore. \ GV

Gluten-Free Winter Market: The annual market featuring stands with information on gluten sensitivity, as well as freshly baked waffles and other snacks, beer on tap and an appearance by Sinterklaas. 28 November 14.00-17.00, ’t Bauhuis, Slachthuisstraat 60

\ coeliakie.be

FOOD & DRINK Brussels Vini, Birre, Ribelli: Annual zero waste and slow food event with a focus on craft, sustainable, organic and natural products, especially beer and wine. 26-27 November, Citroën Garage, Ijzerplein 7 \ vinibirreribelli.net

Unicef wine tasting: Fun and informative world wine tasting with finger foods; all profits go to the United Nations Children’s Fund. Reserve at expats@unicef.be . 29 November 19.15, Mig’s World Wines, Charleroisesteenweg 43 \ migsworldwines.be

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\ BACKPAGE

november 23, 2016

Talking Dutch So long, and thanks for all the waffles

In response to Flanders’ English skills getting better Nurhayati Khan: Coming from a multilingual country myself, I’m always in awe of Belgians who can switch between four languages. It’s really impressive.

Derek Blyth More articles by Derek \ flanderstoday.eu

I

t was one of those headlines that only a Belgian would understand. Uitvaart plechtigheid wordt afgesloten met wafelenbak – Funeral ceremony to end with a wafelenbak, announced Het Laatste Nieuws.

And what, you might ask, is a wafelenbak. The Vlaams Woordenboek – Flemish Dictionary – defines it as een feest waarbij wafels worden gebakken en verkocht – a party where waffles are cooked and sold ten voordele van een goed doel – in aid of a good cause. In other words, the sort of thing the scouts would do to raise money for their summer camp.

But, unlike most waffle parties, this one was going to be held after a funeral. De gemeente Hoeilaart zal op zaterdag 12 November een grote wafelenbak organiseren – The town of Hoeilaart is to organise a huge waffle party on Saturday 12 November ter nagedachtenis van Marc Sleen – in memory of Marc Sleen, de geestelijke vader van de stripfiguur Nero – the spiritual father of the comic strip hero Nero, die op 93-jarige leeftijd overleed – who has died at the age of 93.

No one doubted that eating waffles was the right thing to do at Sleen’s funeral (pictured). Daarmee verwijst men naar de Nero-albums – It served as a reminder of the Nero comic books, die traditioneel afgesloten werden – which traditionally concluded met het gezamenlijk eten van wafels – with everyone eating waffles.

The people of Hoeilaart were upset by the death of the town’s most famous resident. Bij Marc Rooms – For Marc Rooms, de uitbater van ijskar Marc’s ijs – who runs Marc’s ice cream van, kwam het overlijden bijzonder hard aan – the death was particularly hard to take.

Hij kreeg van de striptekenaar enkele jaren geleden groen

VoiceS of flanders today

In response to Antwerp’s new pop-up food court is stylish and tasty Debbie Goldbaum: Sad to hear it’s over in May. Hope they can find a new home. It’s wonderful.

© Filip de Smet/Belga

licht – He got the go-ahead from the comic book artist a few years ago om als enige de Nero-wafels te maken – to have sole rights for making Nero waffles.

But at least everyone knows what they have to do to get over the loss. De gemeente zal voor de deeg zorgen – the council will provide the dough, inwoners en verenigingen worden gevraagd wafelijzers te voorzien – residents and local groups are asked to provide the waffle irons.

More than 1,000 waffles were served after the funeral.

We hebben maar liefst 50 kilogram bloem gebruikt – We used about 50 kilograms of flour, Rooms said, voor het deeg voor de wafels – to make the dough for the waffles en zijn er vier en een half uur aan bezig geweest – and spent four-and-a-half hours preparing it.

Rust in vrede, Marc Sleen – Rest in peace, Marc Sleen, wrote one fan on a social media site. Jij hebt me jaren leesplezier gegeven – You have given me years of reading pleasure, en daarom eet ik als eerbetoon een wafel – and so I will eat a waffle in your honour.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

In response to New guide to largely ignored Brussels neighbourhood Debbie Goldbaum: I lived there as a student in the late 80s, I love it!

Lifeinmyhoodie @lifeinmyhoodie Wow – just wow – most beautiful #train #station #antwerp #belgium #canadianabroad #vacation

WvSchaik @WvSchaik Ghent gets the full five stars from me. Great city, fun people, beers second to none.

Henrik Öijer @henrikoijer Bye bye, Brussels! I had a great time here in Belgium and Flanders, I hope I’ll see you soon!

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the last word Patience is a virtue

Sound advice

“You always think things like this only happen to other people. You can’t imagine one day it might be your turn. I never thought I had a chance.”

Flemish archbishop Jozef De Kesel was made a cardinal by the Pope in Rome at the weekend

“He wants to build a wall to keep the Mexicans out, but Mexicans are people too, right? Who knows what problems a person may have that he can’t stay in his own country. You don’t build a wall against him, you have to help him out.”

Crash course

Nine-year-old Kyandro from Blankenberge, on the election of Donald Trump

“In the end we found one damaged lorry we could use, but the other one we had to buy and damage ourselves.”

© Kristof Van Accom/BELGA

SPRINT FINISH In what could be the final race of his illustrious career, five-time Olympic gold medallist Sir Bradley Wiggins (left) won the Six Days of Flanders-Ghent track cycle race with fellow Olympian Mark Cavendish. Wiggins was coy about his future after the race, but he had been expected to call an end to his career as a full-time cyclist in Ghent, the city where he was born

The producers of the new VTM series Lotgenoten have recreated several major accidents, including a pile-up on the E17 at Nazareth in 1996

Forever young “I’m convinced there are toddlers running around now who will reach the age of 150.”

Biologist Liliane Schoofs of the University of Leuven believes humans have not yet reached their ageing limit

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