Article: Friends of the Zwalm Villages on the 'Geotine' (De Morgen)
Focus on Belgium. Zwalm:
What if the landscape is threatened with decapitation? 'If we do nothing, everything will be lost'
04.09.2025, De Morgen, Editorial
Think twice before you sell all that land. That is the plea from lovers of the countryside and a number of artists in Zwalm. 'They want to parcel out one village farm after another here.'
When the roar of a passing moped has died away, Anna Verhoeve says that there is currently no voice for the landscape and the countryside. "We want to bring that into the debate." Geert Pauwels chimes in, saying that activism and art go hand in hand here. "With this installation, we want to question the mechanisms of marketing, urbanisation and quick profits. It is an indictment, but also an invitation to reflect on the role of public land in our municipality."
A winding street in Zwalm, "the twelve-village paradise" between Zottegem and Oudenaarde. Cumulus clouds drift by. Behind a piece of fallow agricultural land lies the green Munkbosbeek valley.
A wooden art installation in the shape of a guillotine is aimed at the landscape. A hatchet on a string, above a scaffold with 'the victim' on it: a map on which all public land in Zwalm is coloured red. Land owned by the municipality, the province, the diocese. A sign next to this guillotine reads: 'Once sold, forever lost.' 'There is a lot
of pressure on public land,' says Verhoeve. "There are plans to parcel out this plot, but it is in a remote corner of the municipality and offers a unique view of the valley. Should we really continue with the 'verlinten'?"
Art route
De Geotine is part of Kunst & Zwalm, a biennial art trail with the theme 'Land'. Martha Balthazar and Jana De Kockere perform their show Boerenpsalm (Farmers' Psalm), the facility for adults with intellectual disabilities De Bolster processed raw wool into works of art, Atelier V.V. built a wall covered with handmade wallpaper and political posters, The Post Collective investigates how people with a migrant background connect with the land
...By looking at the land in Zwalm," says Leontien Allemeersch of curator PLAN B, an arts platform that focuses on art in rural areas, "we want to make associations with major themes such as the climate catastrophe and the genocides in Palestine, Congo and Sudan, where land, identity and power are inextricably linked."
Verhoeve and Pauwels also want to engage in dialogue with the public through art. Professionally, they work as architects and spatial researchers, but they are also part of the citizens' collective Friends of the Zwalm Villages, which was founded ten years ago after an article in this newspaper entitled 'From film set to rubbish parcelling'. If we do nothing, they thought, everything will be lost. "They want to
parcel out one village farm after another here," says Verhoeve. "We don't necessarily want to stop that development, but we do advocate creative and high-quality solutions. Certainly for land owned by the government, we as citizens can expect thorough consideration."
They alternate more light-hearted actions, such as a retro race or a heritage walk, with submitting objections or, as is currently the case, erecting a Geotine. "Historically, this
is very fertile land," says Verhoeve. "In a context of drought and waterlogging, shouldn't we think more carefully about food production in our municipality? These lands have seen world wars and other periods when the government was sometimes in dire financial straits, so why should we suddenly sell them now?"
Keeping
it open The installation features an AI-generated image of a typical Flemish housing development. Not a soul in sight, the front gardens neat and tidy, bricks and asphalt everywhere you look. "Even a high-quality housing development or a small
residential area outside the residential centre is actually indefensible," Pauwels adds. "Let's keep it open and use it as bargaining chips for the real challenges, such as biodiversity loss, food production and climate adaptation: that is our message."