‘Stellar Scape’ in ‘Le Pavillon’ in Namur

26/10/2024

My love at first sight in 2021, “Le Pavillon’ opened on the highest point of the capital of Wallonia, in the glorious city of Namur. As its founders joke: ‘despite its appearance, which resembles an astronomical station, the Pavillon did not come from Mars, but from Milan.’ Namur-based architect Patrick Génard and his Barcelona-based architectural firm Patrick Génard & Asociados created the Belgian Pavilion in such an interplanetary style for the 2015 World Expo in Milan. ‘Le Pavillon’ teleported to the Citadel district in Namur, the architect’s homeland, and became an Art Centre where art meets science and they are both with a public demand (for an ecological, comfortable, socially just future life). As part of the 13th edition of the KIKK festival at ‘Le Pavillon’, we saw the exhibition ‘Stellar Scape’ (opened in June 2024). I must say that the ‘cosmic landscape’ in the Art Centre is very interesting. We are entering the latest era of space exploration, and art based on scientific discoveries helps to analyse the challenges – ethical, geopolitical, ecological. Meet our fantastique guide Roman!

Sammy Baloji – a solo exhibition at Kunsthal Extra City, Antwerp

On 17 April, a solo exhibition by Sammy Baloji arrived -like a mnemonic vessel of historical memory - at Kunsthal Extra City in Antwerp, a former Dominican monastery now functioning as a contemporary art space. The exhibition settles seamlessly into the interiors of...

Marina Yee – the final confessional interview at Sofie Van De Velde

Marina Yee - the most “little-known” member of the world-famous Antwerp Six - not for any lack of God-given talent. A girl who grew up in Congo, where her father worked as a colonial official, she showed an early gift for drawing and for altering clothes. Her family...

The bicentenary of the Val Saint Lambert Crystal Works

The history of the Val Saint-Lambert crystal manufactory deserves a place in school history textbooks at the intersection of eras and revolutions. A Cistercian abbey, founded in the Middle Ages near the town of Seraing, was closed by the passionate agents of the...

“Metamorphoses: after Ovid” exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam

In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora; di, coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas) adspirate meis primaque ab origine mundi ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen. My mind now strives to tell of bodies changed,Which gods transformed into forms anew;Breathe...

BXL Gourmand – Exploring Brussels finest chocolatiers on the 28–29 March

Announcement! It all began in 1912, when chocolatier Jean Neuhaus created the first praline in the Royal Galleries of Saint-Hubert. Since then, the Belgian capital has become one of the world’s centres of chocolate craftsmanship. Today, more than 150 companies and...

“Picture Perfect” – Beauty through a Contemporary Lens at Bozar

The exhibition centre BOZAR in Brussels, having opened the lavish exhibition Bellezza e Bruttezza (Beauty and Ugliness) on 20 February 2026 - running until 14 June 2026 - which explores beauty and ugliness in the Renaissance, continues to reflect on the concept of...