Museumnight
Antwerp
On Saturday, August 2, Antwerp will be all about Museumnight. Each year, AmuseeVous is given free rein to create an alternative program featuring young artists. This year, we’re joining forces with eight museums for a series of unique, artistic activities: intimate, interactive, playful, and poetic.
R2E3 + R1E4
Sculptor Gayaneh De Coster works from a deeply physical approach. She is guided by her intuition, the touch of the material, and the dynamics of the process. For her, sculpting is not a one-way act, but a dialogue between maker and matter.
In her practice, the boundaries between feeling and making begin to blur. Interoception, the inner sensing of the body, is key in this. Much like for Audre Lorde, the erotic for Gayaneh is a source of knowledge, power, and connection. Her sculptures are not endpoints, but encounters that continue to grow in relation to their surroundings and to you, the viewer.
The work ‘R2E3 + R1E4’ is also a place of encounter. In doing so, Gayaneh does not choose the colourful markets of Frans Snijders, but rather opts for stillness, touch, and slowness. What happens when these two worlds collide?
Fluisterpoëzie
Jaspe Azabe is a multilingual spoken word artist, cultural worker, and story keeper. In her work, memory, migration, and gentle resistance flow together to create poetic space to breathe. She writes with the body, speaks in layers, and uses poetry as a ritual of both resistance and connection. Her voice is tender yet resolute. During Museumnight, she brings whisper poetry as an intimate counterforce – soft, but unflinching.
On August 2nd, she wanders through the Rubenshuis. In the garden, among books, or waiting by the entrance, visitors are approached. Not with a loud voice, but with a soft whisper: poetry, delivered unexpectedly and intimately.
This poetic intervention plays with silence, surprise, and closeness. Where and when the whisperer appears remains unpredictable. But those who meet her carry the poem with them like a secret as they leave.
Vlaggen in vogelvlucht
Kato Trappers is a graphic designer and creative all-rounder. With ‘Vlaggen in vogelvlucht’, she gives new meaning to her drawings. Birds are the central theme of the sketchbook Kato Trappers carries with her always and everywhere. In a series of flags, Kato builds a bridge between heraldry and her own imagination.
The installation is a fluttering exploration of form, symbol, and flight. It is a tribute to birds and the flutter toward a new, textile language. Always on the move, always in search.
One Motion Organic Tekno Machine
Milan Veraart Steffen is a sculptor, specialized in creating moving sculptures. His 'One Motion Organic Tekno Machine' makes music like you’ve never heard before.
The insect-like art installation plays multiple instruments at once, producing unique, uncanny sounds. The machine has been shown in various locations and changes its sound every time.
Come and discover how this installation sounds in the museum’s cellars!
DE PAUW EN DE PAUW
Ella Salvador Dalemans (she/her) is a poet, musician, and performer. Her work revolves around human relationships, grief, and womanhood. She approaches these themes in a thoughtful yet playful way.
‘De Pauw en de Pauw’ is part of a series of performances about love in the broadest sense of the word. In this creative process, Ella explores the kind of love that does good — after all, enough has been written about longing, desire, and pain. With this series, she offers a response to the distorted images of love perpetuated by patriarchal pop culture.
In the shortened version, Ella performs a few love poems, wrapped in a theatrical mini-concert. She sings about a frequently underestimated form of love, armed with a grand costume and bold shoes. About trust and closeness, dandelions and cranes, about women resting together.
GELUIDSVANGST
In the work of Janne Van Woensel Kooy, alongside drawing, sound and movement also play an important role. Her performances question spatial awareness and social responsibility.
For Museumnight, she serves the sounds of the surrounding space. What unfolds on the lively Hendrik Conscienceplein blends with the intimate silence of the Erfgoedbibliotheek.
A voice reads aloud from Konkrete Poëzie, the book that Nico Dockx transforms into edible work and serves on the square that evening.
As a graphic score, she unrolls her paper, step by step. While drawing, Janne processes the sounds she captured. What remains is the visual trace of sound.
You are here
With ‘You are here’, artist Susanna Ingignoli presents a visual installation that reflects on the city, its history, and our place within it.
The series of letters leading toward the main entrance of Het Steen restores the historical connection between the old fortress and the Museum De Reede.
The installation refers to Antwerp’s rich printing history, with a nod to the heritage of the Museum Plantin-Moretus. At the same time, the work leaps into the digital age, exploring the interplay between tradition and technology.
The installation refers to Antwerp’s rich printing history, with a nod to the heritage of the Museum Plantin-Moretus. At the same time, the work leaps into the digital age, exploring the interplay between tradition and technology.
‘You are here’ is, quite literally, a location marker. In doing so, the work raises questions about place and presence: What does it mean to be “here” in a city in motion? Are you a resident, a visitor, a passerby? How do you relate to the past and the future of this place?
Through the interplay of materials, a poetic image emerges: one that invites reflection on time, space, and identity in a city that is constantly changing.
Beweegredenen & radio karibu
The duo behind this initiative, Stef Goysens (BEWEEGREDENEN) and Tomás Sels (RADIO KARIBU), are not only housemates, but also passionate artists who seek to reinterpret the act of celebrating and share it with others.
KARIBU literally means WELCOME and also reflects a mentality and culture of togetherness, hospitality, and tolerance. RADIO KARIBU gladly brings SOUND and COLOUR to the world.BEWEEGREDENEN aims to disconnect from conventional REASONING and move toward MOTION. Away from the mind, into the body: into embodiment, feeling first. Stef likes to describe dancing as CREASING and WRITHING, precisely to break free from monotonous, repetitive patterns of dance and movement.
Their semi-mobile disco bar (on a Piaggio Ape!) brings the music; their dance-driven BEWEEGREDENEN invite exploration, expression, stillness, and encounter.
The evening begins at 7 PM with a playful collective opening ceremony.At SUNSET – 21:27 – we begin the collective wordless dance, which continues until midnight. At MIDNIGHT, we hold a collective closing ceremony and facilitate the transition from wordless dancing to dancing, moving, and interacting with words, all the way through to the end at 1 AM.
Scaldis Re-Imagined & Blueprint of a River
Photographer Babette Gloria Vincke approaches her work from personal experience, a deep connection with nature, and a strong bond with water and ecology.
As a sea scout, she came to know the Scheldt River from the deck of a sailboat: a perspective that shapes her artistic vision. Babette translates this relationship into dreamy, sometimes critical images in which reality, waste, and aesthetics merge.
As a sea scout, she came to know the Scheldt River from the deck of a sailboat: a perspective that shapes her artistic vision. Babette translates this relationship into dreamy, sometimes critical images in which reality, waste, and aesthetics merge.
Blueprint of a River
A blueprint outlines what is invisible to the naked eye. This work reveals a plan of what takes place beneath the surface of the rough waters of the Scheldt.
The ugly parts are often hidden, but on the blueprint, they always remain visible.
Scaldis Re-ImaginedA blueprint outlines what is invisible to the naked eye. This work reveals a plan of what takes place beneath the surface of the rough waters of the Scheldt.
The ugly parts are often hidden, but on the blueprint, they always remain visible.
Using visual material she created and objects she found along the banks of the Scheldt, she tried to construct a new world.The unsightly waste that washed ashore becomes treasure—illustrating the pollution of the river water.
