Felix de Clerck
He is the director of Kunstenpunt - Flanders Arts Institute, an interface organisation and expertise centre for the arts in Flanders and Brussels. The organisation caters to both national and international professional arts audiences. The organisation is known as Kunstenpunt to national audiences.
Mariane Cosserat
She is cultural attachée at the Institut Culturel Français in Oslo. She has directed several festivals in the field of visual arts, entertainment and literature in Norway and Belgium (SEAS Tromsø, Le Marathon des Mots de Bruxelles, Passaporta). She has also conceived and coordinated various international artistic cooperation projects in the international field, working from Europe to the Middle East and worked for international cultural organizations and networks (IETM, Pearle *, Culture Action Europe, CTE / ETC), and recently worked as an expert for the European Commission for the Creative Europe Programme. Graduated in Management and Cultural Policies at the Institute of European Studies of the Université Paris 8, she received a master's degree from the ULB in Brussels and is currently a PhD researcher in Political Science with a research focused on diversity in cultural policies. She intervenes regularly in training modules and at the university.
Gudrun Heymans
She is the Coordinator of the Creative Europe Culture Desk Flanders within the Flemish Government - Department Culture, Youth, Sports, Media. She defines arts and cultural heritage as oxygen to her life. Through intensive and pro-active networking, campaigning and in-depth assistance and administrative coordination during years of European cultural work, she built up a consistent database of reliable professional contacts and an open communication with local and international cultural operators. As a result, she managed to steadily increase the number of submitted and selected projects with Belgian/Flemish cultural cooperation. She is an expert in project management and in setting up, participating and presenting public information actions such as information days, workshops, platform exchanges, formal and informal professional meetings.
Thomas Kempeneers
Born in 1984 in Liège, he graduated historical sciences and obtained a master degree in the management of the cultural heritage. He became in 2008 director of the Cultural Centre of Bastogne, in the heart of the Ardenne and promoted a dynamic programme dedicated to all publics and focused on schools and managed also the Centre for contemporary art “L’Orangerie”. In 2011 he becomes director of the Cultural Centre in Waremme, in the Hesbaye region, a region with strong agricultural roots in between Brussels and Liège. The team of the Cultural Centre (6 persons) develops and implements artistic, long life learning projects seeking always the involvement of the citizens and of the local associations. The Centre is part of the network of cooperation of cultural centres of the Hesbaye Liègeoise.
Leen Laconte
She has always been active in the field of international, cultural and artistic cooperation, namely in Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Brazil. She holds a Master in Comparative Culture Studies (U Gent). She is currently director for OKO. She has considerable experience as a mediator between governmental programs and the needs of the professional field. She is a dedicated board member of various artistic companies and organizations (www.abattoirferme.be; www.spinvzw.be; www.passaporta.be; www.manifesta9.org) and an active member of several assessment committees: Fonds der Letteren (NL), Fund for the Performing Arts (NL), VGC (BE).
Elke van Lent
She is the coordinator of the Association for Flemish Culture and Community Centres (VVC), where she's responsible for policy support of cultural and community centres in Flanders. She graduated in 2016 as Master in Cultural Management at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). During her studies she interned at the Kazerne Dossin Museum on Holocaust and Human Rights (in the context of a thesis on Customer Relationship Management) and the Brakke Grond Flemish Culture House in Amsterdam (for a thesis on working with audiences). She also interned at Cultural Centre Ter Dilft in Bornem, where she educated primary school children on the workings of theatre.
Erik Martens
He is head of film culture at the Flanders Audiovisual Fund. Before 2014 he wrote about film for different publications (De Standaard, Focus Knack, International Film Guide, Ons Erfdeel, The Low Countries, Streven, Staalkaart…) and talked about film for public radio station Klara. In the period 2002-2014 he was editor of Cinematec DVDs (Royal Belgian Film Archive), and in the period 2010-2014 he was coordinator of the film department at KASK School of Arts in Ghent.
François Matarasso
He has worked in community arts since 1981 as an artist, producer, researcher, writer and trainer. He has published influential work on the social outcomes of participation in the arts, and on the history, theory and practice of community art. Most of his books are available free to download here: https://rgu.academia.edu/FrançoisMatarasso He works freelance with arts organisations, foundations and public bodies, and has experience of community-based cultural work in about 40 countries. His latest book, A Restless Art, will be published by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 2018. For more information see http://arestlessart.com
Piotr Michalowski
He is a cultural manager, researcher and animator, as well as a professional musician. He is a co-initiator of Wandering Cultural Forum Lower Silesia, a developing regional network of cultural organizations, and head of the Culture House in the Community Culture Centre of Oleśnica. He is member of the board and Secretary of ENCC. He also owns the company Micro Art Centre Piotr Michałowski, active in the cultural and creative sector, supporting national and international event organization and management, providing cultural and strategic counselling for institutions and companies, and supporting cultural activities in the fields of music, theatre, film, and photography.
Ivo Peeters
He is the Director of the cultural centre De Zeyp, located in Ganshoren, one of the Brussels' districts. Born in 1954 with a master’s degree in Political and Social science, he has 30 years of experience working at the local level. In 1994, he cofounded the ENCC and headed its coordination office for 10 years as General Secretary. During those first 10 years he organised several international meetings and an international cultural management course (comparable to the current BECC training/staff exchange programme of the ENCC). Today he is the president of the ENCC.
Staf Pelckmans
He is the artistic and managing director of Cultuurhuis de Warande since 1999. He is also a co-founder and organiser of many cultural projects such as TheaterStap, Stormopkomst art festival for children, MOOOV film festival, Strip Turnhout comics festival, Kunstinzicht art education organisation; Ar-Tur architecture organization and Stroom educational organisation. He is co-chairman of the VVC cultural and community centre association in Flanders, associated expert to the ENCC board, and visiting lecturer in cultural management at Antwerp Management School, RITCS and others.
Marjo van Schaik
She studied psychology, law and European studies in Amsterdam, before beginning her career in the corporate sector and spending the 90s navigating the changing world of business. She was General Manager of Nationale Opera en Ballet in Amsterdam from 2000 to 2005, before leading and overseeing projects for smaller pioneering cultural organisations, such as directing a multicultural theatre/exhibition centre in the Bijlmer neighbourhood. This experience inspired her to research the topic of the changing role of cultural buildings. Her book Spaces of Culture was recently published as a PhD thesis, and will soon be revised and republished by NAI for a larger audience.
Cultural spaces in Turnhout, a short introduction to city planning in Turnhout
guided tour by Hugo Meeks, architect and urban planner
In 1972 Turnhout was the first Flemish city to open a ‘cultureel and ontmoetingscentrum’, after a long discussion about how to call this new kind of infrastructure. Not a museum, not a neighbourhood centre, not an arts centre, but a kind of living room for the people of the region. As soon as the early 1970s, the combination of a free meeting place, artistic production, the library, a flea market, and art exhibitions enhanced social discussions on themes like urban renewal, mobility and the environment. De Warande was the birthplace of a number of spin-offs: Stripgids, Ar-Tur, Mooov, Dinamo, Kaaiman grew in this fertile meeting place.
Today, the newest urban policy change is about the public domain, the streets and squares of the city itself. Parks, squares and children’s playgrounds are conceived as meeting places for everyone. In Turnhout, Turnhout makes the most of the fact that cultural space is not about buildings and institutions, but about the space you give people to connect, to show the best of themselves, and to experience the world around them.
After the Turnhout city tour, you have a choice between 4 other study visits:
Theater Stap
Theatre Stap is a professional theatre company creating performances in which mentally disabled people take centre stage. The performances’ artistic quality legitimises the company’s unique position within Flanders’ mainstream theatrical landscape.
Theater Stap strongly believes disabled artists possess the capacity to move their audiences while performing. The company offers the actors a working space to develop their talents and individual artistic careers. In collaboration with various professional artists Theater Stap creates productions putting first the actors’ authenticity, increasing the visibility of disabled people and livening up broad discussions about theatre.
Hetgevolg
- In 2014 Stefan Perceval became director of Hetgevolg, a theatre-workplace in the centre of Turnhout. When Stefan started in Hetgevolg he found that nobody in the city had the slightest idea of what was going on behind the closed walls of the theatre. So the first thing he did was go out in the streets and talk to people. ‘It was then that I realized that one of my first tasks - or even obligations - was to create a bond between Hetgevolg, the city and the people in its streets’, says Stefan. He set up cooperation with the local centre for basic education, with the centre for people living in poverty, with refugee organizations and with other neighbouring organizations.
‘What is behind the wall?’ is Stefan's guiding question. His participatory and emancipatory methods help people express themselves in their own way and reveal emotions, dreams, and talents that had been hidden behind ‘walls’ of silence, fear or grief. The example of Hetgevolg shows how cultural education can help empower people within their local communities. Now, the city of Turnhout is also aware of the positive vibes Hetgevolg brings to the city and its habitants. And organisations from all over Belgium ask Hetgevolg to help them set up similar projects.
Kunstencampus at Turnova
In 1976, the Brepols Print Factory left the city centre to move 3 km south. Some 2000 workers moved with it, and left an empty space, only 100 meters from the Grote Markt main square. In 2004, successful public-private cooperation finally started, with the aim of creating a new living neighbourhood: Turnova. After a lot of planning and thinking, it is now being built.
In 2017 the first part was opened: the new Kunstencampus arts campus. Each week nearly 3000 students from 5 to 75 years old follow classes in drawing, painting, music, dance and more.
It is an example of how an institution can be connected to the life and people of a town centre.
The National Museum of the Playing Card
The museum is based in a former printing factory, is an ode to Turnhout’s rich graphic design and printing history. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, playing cards have been printed here and exported all over the world. There are only five playing card museums in the world and this is the only one that shows and explains the production process.
The historical printing presses displayed at the museum are still being used regularly. Twice a month, volunteers demonstrate the process of the printing, shining and cutting of playing cards. The volunteers are all former employees of printing companies who enjoy passing on their knowledge to visitors. There are several educational workshops available for local school children. Be sure not to miss the gigantic 19th century steam engine!
The world leading manufacturer of cards and games, Cartamundi, still produces up to a million sets of playing cards in Turnhout each day. The company designed a ‘room of the future’, which features several interactive digital displays and a selfie wall. But there’s more to come: the museum has exciting plans to involve young designers and card playing communities.
