Launching a new international series ‘Anna and the Verwandelingen’, a sequel to the successful editions of ‘Anna and the Field Reports’, Anna Luyten will be chatting with historian, painter, performer, writer, pianist, doctor of arts, collector and walker Koen Broucke.
His walks lead him to unexpected encounters with history and art. For Broucke, walking is not just a physical activity, but a way of connecting with the past, nature and the stories hidden in landscapes. His hiking accounts are personal travel stories, but also reflections on time, space and the relationship between man and landscape. His unique observations invite us to look differently.
Koen Broucke spent years walking in the footsteps of forgotten soldiers, discovering ‘wounded landscapes’ and wrote his PhD in the arts ‘Under the pink darkness of the battlefield’ (KU Leuven, LUCA School of Arts, Glasgow School of Arts, 2014-2019). He is a walking, painting chronicler. He follows the river Meuse, tracks, people and things along the way. This week, his exhibition Op Drift | Flights to Kampen 1914 – 2024 opened in the Dutch town of Kampen. It is 110 years since World War I caused one million Belgians to flee to the Netherlands. Kampen is one of the places they ended up. Broucke paints their portraits and starts with the story of his great-grandmother.
verwandelen (Dutch forgotten word) 1 to make different, to change 2 to become different, to change 3 to move – German (ver)wandeln – ie. as walking ‘to walk quietly’, from °wanden ‘to go, to pass over’.
Walking Arts & Local Communities (WALC) is an artistic cooperation project, co-funded by the European Union, Creative Europe, starting in January 2024 for four years. With seven partners from five countries, WALC establishes an International Center for Artistic Research and Practice of Walking Arts, in Prespa, Greece, at the border with Albania and North Macedonia, backed up by an online counterpart in the format of a digital platform for walking arts.
WALC builds on the previous work of hundreds of artists and researchers already practicing Walking Arts as a collaborative medium, and having met at the significant previous walking arts events and encounters in Greece, Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, and during online activities at walk · listen · create.
We acknowledge the support of the EU Creative Europe Cooperation grant program in the framework of the European project WALC (Walking Arts and Local Community).
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
| Video recording of cafe |
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Metamorphoses on the walking paths with Koen Broucke
Launching a new international series ‘Anna and the Verwandelingen’, a sequel to the successful editions of ‘Anna and the Field Reports’, before a live audience at the School of Gaasbeek in Belgium, Anna Luyten chatted with historian, painter, performer, writer, pianist, doctor of arts, collector and walker Koen Broucke. Koen walks lead him to unexpected encounters