BRIEF ENCOUNTERS
The Belgian city of Leuven is celebrating its university’s 600th year with a festival of public art and poetry that draws visitors deep into the city’s streets, gardens and courtyards, and asks questions about how art, science and society influence and enrich each other. Veronica Simpson reports
THERE ARE OLDER universities in the world – Oxford and Cambridge, for example, have clocked up over 1,000 years apiece – but none that I know of that would mark a significant milestone by throwing a party for the host city and all its citizens and visitors. KU Leuven turns 600 in 2025. To celebrate
six centuries of (almost) uninterrupted commitment to education, to fostering curiosity and wonder, and supporting excellence and innovation across the humanities and the sciences, the university has spent substantial sums on a festival that infuses this multi-layered history into permanent works of public art and poetry. Leuven has a lower profile than it Belgian peers – your typical tourist hit list would probably feature Brussels first, or Bruges, Antwerp and Ghent, before Leuven. But what a revelation when we start to explore this city: its medieval streets are filled with treasures – not quite as many medieval edifices as Bruges, admittedly, but still impressive. And the university seems to have the lion’s share of these significant buildings, including Arenberg Castle, which was built in the 16th century by William II of Croÿ and Maria of Hamale. After World War II, it was acquired by the university, along with the surrounding parklands, creating a splendid and tranquil setting for students and an anchor for its new science campus. Appropriately, they have given this fine building to the departments of architecture, conservation and engineering. It’s here that we meet one of the first of the works commissioned for Leuven’s celebrations: Te Wandering Garden. Architects/artists Gijs Van Vaerenbergh devised a structure inspired by the classical mazes often found in castle landscapes, its Corten steel curves waltzing around the lawn, in place of what used to be a staff car park. But this is a collaborative project, with botanists from the KU Leuven Plant Institute, so around its base are 100 different species of climbing plants, from
wisteria and honeysuckle to grapevines. Over the years, as the plants evolve, this structure will transform. Apparently, the ‘wandering’ in its title refers to a speech by former chancellor Pieter De Somer, in 1985, about academic freedom to conduct research without interference from the state or any other entity – a more timely and welcome sentiment now than he could possibly have realised then. Tis work marks the start of the route, which finishes with a poem What It Is by Maud Vanhauwaert, one of the trio of curators, which meanders across the building housing the Institute of Philosophy. Fourteen further interventions are woven around university buildings old and new – though mostly old. Luckily, these buildings are spread all around the city’s medieval core, so any casual visitor will receive a welcome education about both the city’s and the university’s evolution as they follow the tours (either self-guided or in person). Tis ambitious programme has been co-curated by Heidi Ballet, who previously curated the Beaufort Triennial, the aforementioned Vanhauwaert, and KU Leuven’s Professor of Philosophy Stéphane Simons. It’s a balance between visual and verbal,
the latter specially commissioned poems variously wrapped around the façades of buildings, stretched along a courtyard path or placed in an alleyway. Te poems are in Belgian so I can’t vouch for them in the original language, but I enjoyed Ballet reading them aloud to our multilingual group, in English translation. Te whole project is a laudable exercise in co-creation, as our curator hosts outlined. Simons told us: ‘Dialogue between artists and scientists is ideal for reflecting on societal challenges.’ What they have in common is ‘experimentation, creativity, creation’. Tere is also that quality of wonder. Te tension between the two disciplines can also be productive, he said, with ‘scientists (being) usually experts in a narrow field and results-driven. Artists are more likely to see
Right: Gijs Van Vaerenbergh’s The Wandering Garden is inspired by the classical mazes often found in castle landscapes
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101
