Frie Lauwers

Thomas Baltes, a journalist/photographer from Paris, came to Doel to make a multimedia reportage about the village, including interviews with some of its inhabitants. He will soon return to Doel to make portraits of villagers.

View Thomas' reportage on our site >>> (in French, Dutch and English)

The renowned Cornerstone Magazine of the British for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (250,000 issues) publishes a three-page article about the sad fate of Doel.
Read "Belgium Turns Its Rubens Village to Rubble" here

The prestious Italian Domusweb site for art, architecture and design published a slightly modified version of the KunstDoel New Year's appeal to the Flemish authorities to maintain Doel as an arts village.
KunstDoel thanks Daniela Terrile for her contribution on Domusweb.

Read the full article here >>>

(photo KunstKater collective)

The KunstKater collective from Lier is working on the banner that will be rolled out on Sunday, 30 August on the occasion of the launch of the petition demanding speaking right for Doel in the Flemish Parliament.

More info about the events that day >>>

Last week, an Italian correspondent in Brussels from La Stampa visited Doel after reading the article in Knack about Michelangelo Pistoletto's letter to Minister President Peeters. Last Saturday (1 August), La Stampa published a full-page report >>> (in Italian).

On 30 April, world-famous Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto paid a visit to Doel and saw the works of art made within the framework of the KunstDoel-Inside/Outside projects. Pistoletto was so impressed by the beauty of the village and the wave of solidarity it had generated within the art sector, that he decided to write a letter regarding the fate of Doel to the new Flemish Government.  This week, he lived up to his words and wrote a heartfelt plea for the preservation of Doel to Flemish Minister President Peeters. The picture shows the moment on the river bank -- "standing on a metaphysical axis where different time ages intersect" -- described in Pistoletto's letter.

Read letter (pdf) >>>

On Thursday, 30 April the world-famous Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto will be in Doel!

Thanks to the Doel-Antwerp praline, KunstDoel has joined since April 2008 the international pastries network of Love Difference, an international movement for socially committed art that fits within Pistoletto's Cittadellarte organization. This cooperation resulted in November of last year in the signing of a Love Difference - KunstDoel twinning agreement.  A few months earlier, KunstDoel attended the foundational meeting of Pistoletto's Mediterranean Cultural Parliament in Strasbourg.
On Wednesday 29 April, Michelangelo will be at the European Parliament in Brussels for the final event of the AS_TIDE project. Since he is in Belgium, he will seize this opportunity to visit Doel and see his KunstDoel aRTivists in action. We will welcome him with open arms! Michelangelo is expected to arrive in Doel around 11u30.

In February, our new village poet Frank Devos extended an invitation to Flemish poets to write a poem for Doel. He has since received 70 poems. These 70 poets have now been invited to come to Doel on 10 May to write their poems on water-resistant canvases and attach them to the walls of empty houses in Doel. Many poets, including some literary heavyweights, have already accepted the invitation. One of the main streets in Doel will be completely "poeticised" on 10 May.

This project is open to all visual artists. It aims to cover all the windows of empty houses with two-dimensional artworks suggesting the houses are still inhabited and thus creating a surrealistic atmosphere of virtual inhabitation. The artists will become the custodians of the houses they create artwork for. KunstDoel hopes the works of art will stop advancing bulldozers… Since its launch in early March, 80 windows have already been claimed. The works are now effectively invading the streets of Doel….
This event will be inaugurated on 24 May (time still to be determined).

KunstDoel found 10 Belgian artists with international renown -- Guillaume Bijl, Luc Tuymans, Fred Bervoets, Jan Decleir, Jan Van Imschoot, Koen van den Broek, Ria Pacquée, Guy Van Bossche, Katie Heck and Mitja Tušek (who resides in Belgium) -- willing to come to the village to create a work of art inside the houses of 10 villagers. Their works are meant to protect the houses against demolition. The opening of this peculariar residential art exhibit will take place on Saturday, 2 May at 11 hrs in Doel, in the presence of Flemish Culture Minister Bert Anciaux, the only minister within the Flemish government who is positively inclined toward the Doel arts enclave proposal.
Pictures:
- 27 March, five famous artists in Doel >>> (text in Dutch)
- 10 April: Mitja Tušek in Doel >>> (text in Dutch)