In 2025, arriving slightly late but still in time for the opening of the season after the renovation of De Singel, we witnessed a procession of half-naked people covered in silver paint moving along the new red carpet of the concert complex to a meditative soundscape. They left behind a trail of smoke and astonishment.
The performance OPUS 1 by Belgian multimedia artist Stef Van Looveren raised more questions than it answered.
On the one hand, the procession echoed the medieval tradition still practised in Belgium from Mons to Bruges. Actors painted from head to toe and dressed in medieval costumes earn their living outside almost every respectable cathedral in the country. Yet the participants in this procession boldly displayed parts of their bodies which, in the words of Till Eulenspiegel, “do not speak Flemish”. And on a processiedraagbaar – a ceremonial litter – they carried something that looked very much like a male reproductive organ (although, of course, one could also call it a “relic”). At the same time the silver body paint evoked the aesthetics of Star Wars and other futuristic films; at moments it even brought to mind Metropolis (1927) by Fritz Lang.
I found answers to many of these questions at the M HKA during the press opening of its spring–summer season at the exhibition COSMIC BODY – First Incision (on view until 17 May 2026) by the young Belgian artist Stef Van Looveren. The exhibition grew out of a performance that gathered an audience of 800 people in January. A non-binary artist (they/them), Stef Van Looveren together with performer and hypnotherapist Michele Occelli explore the relevance of trance within contemporary creative practices. By sustaining ambiguity and encouraging non-binary ways of thinking and relating, they propose alternative ways of inhabiting the body and engaging with the world. Among the key themes are non-binary embodiment, interconnection, and the symbolic figure of the divine androgyne Rebis, alongside the alchemical principle solve et coagula (“dissolve and recombine”). The performance can be seen on video – a hypnotic spectacle, alchemical and otherworldly. The art objects presented in the exhibition are the material outcomes of that performance.
The artist and the hypnotherapist investigate the state of “in-betweenness” as a shared conceptual and embodied framework within contemporary art and hypnosis. They explore how states of suspension – between self and other, inner and outer, form and formlessness – open a space for transformation. Trance is described as a threshold state in which fixed identities soften and oppositions dissolve. In this reflective state of melting and reforming, perception becomes fluid and relational. Artistic practice and hypnosis are presented as parallel embodied methods that cultivate altered attention and somatic awareness, making transformation possible both within inner experience and outward form. Pure twenty-first-century alchemy.
In addition, on 26 March at 19:00 Stef Van Looveren together with Michele Occelli will speak in a public talk about the necessity of trance in an age of increasing social polarisation.
On Saturday 28 March at 15:00 Michele Occelli will lead a performative session devoted to hypnosis and trance. This unique experience will take place directly inside Stef Van Looveren’s site-specific installation (tickets for the performance must be purchased separately from the museum ticket).
Watch the interview with the Senior Curator of M HKA, Joanna Zielińska.