Article: Luk Lambrecht on Art & Zwalm (Flux News)
Land
29 August 2025, Flux News, Luk Lambrecht
Kunst & Zwalm is here to stay as a recurring quality project that uses art to engage with the beautifully rolling landscape and the state of affairs in this beautiful area in East Flanders. For Kunst & Zwalm 2025, the collective Kunstenplatform PLAN B was chosen as 'curator', a decision with positive consequences. The participating artists were not selected from the mainstream art world, i.e. the better gallery circuit, but were chosen on the basis of their idiosyncratic relationship with the tense notion of 'land', both here and further afield.
What makes Kunst & Zwalm unique is the introduction of local organisations such as De Bolster, a facility for adults with intellectual disabilities, and 'De vrienden van de Zwalmse dorpen' (Friends of the Zwalm Villages), a citizens' association dedicated to preserving open spaces and land (as commons) that are often prey to the alluring world of real estate. In between, artists (also) from Palestine and Turkey are active, where 'land' is the stake in freedom and independence or in protest against environmentally polluting and space-polluting thermal power stations. The route is 6 km long and stretches along a pond, panoramic views, chapels and a number of detached indoor locations where video is the main focus. There are 18 stops along the route, stops that make us think hard about vague and intertwined concepts such as art, activism, documentary, dissonant narratives... For this reason, the allocated tax money is well spent here; the project breathes life into the work of lesser-known artists and collectives, leaving the scythe of censorship in the shed. The theme of 'soil' is germinating in society: people are becoming more aware of the way in which 'soil' is used; 'people' are also more sensitive about the quality of crops and food, as well as the pollution caused by them. The short food chain, land, nationalism and identity; the clash between the interests of local farmers, concrete farmers and the concerns of pressure groups for fair trade and conduct, as well as respectful use of public space (commons), bring us closer to the basic idea of this edition. 'Kunst & Zwalm' is ambitious; the result is certainly impressive because the artworks connect with each other, as it were, and cross-pollinate in terms of content. The walk slowly becomes an essay on how artists co-reflect with us (the public) on how we deal with our small and distant world.
Futurefarmers makes the short chain particularly visible; with a simple wooden boat – like a primitive 'manolo' – flour from the nearby mill is shipped to a small oven on the water that bakes healthy bread. 'Back2soilbasics' is a group of people of colour from Brussels who planted a large installation in a field that reflects on their near absence as (field) workers in the countryside. The productive return of the land is the powerful visual message here, with the potential idea that a country can flourish by approaching agriculture and related stories differently.
The "Geotine" by the citizens' platform partly ties in with this; a real fake guillotine with a promotional AI land division image as its blade is interspersed with a map of Zwalm indicating all publicly owned land. The Geotine stands next to a beautifully sloping field owned by the municipality, but at the same time sparkles as an ideal piece of land for division. Alarm! This is also the case with Bert Villa's 'Klokkenluider' (Whistleblower), which is perfectly placed in the landscape. Villa is an artist-architect who draws on a fact that engineers already 'sounded the alarm' about an impending flood in Zeeland in 1928. It happened in 1953... This wooden installation, which can be sounded by the public, is a powerful exemplary signal for an urgent ecological wake-up call! Along the walk, wind-sensitive interventions can be seen on and between fences, where 'Seasonal Neighbours' created/wove geo-figures with sheep's wool, sometimes with a view of the white and brown sheep grazing in the meadows.
Food – especially grains and corn – demands attention in Kunst & Zwalm. The Brussels-based 'The Post Collective' is active in a chapel with the 'Metaspora' project, based on local gatherings on dates that are (religiously) related to Holy Days, with wheat (bread) as the intercultural binding agent. The public receives a beautiful booklet with detailed explanations and can taste the delicious aniseed-flavoured bread, symbolically shaped using a wooden mould, in the chapel, face to face with Mary. How beautiful!
Leonard Pongo from Congo, known for his captivating photographs and videos about the silent but at the same time 'speaking' Congolese landscapes, presents a beautiful three-part installation with sound in a garage as a 'reflection on the interaction between land, tradition and collective consciousness'. Brussels-based Palestinian artist Ismail Matar created a freestanding sculpture on site based on a graphic montage of Arabic letters that presents us with a powerful sign that 'from the ashes of Gaza and the dust of destruction', a powerful symbol of hope will rise. Berlin-based Pinar Ogrenci is also here with her interview videos of protesting women in rural Turkey – who managed to stop the project by beating sticks on the ground in a mesmerising ritual. And so it goes on in Kunst & Zwalm, where a fish bike rides around like a real tattoo workshop; Hendrik Vermeulen has created an impressive organic wall sculpture on a farm, where Julie Van Kerckhoven also presents her photographs 'About Corn', telling stories behind corn in a place where the delicious smell of fermented corn briefly overpowers the stench of pig manure.
There is work on display from a collaboration with children at a school; ingenious prints on the wall surrounding a church and much more, such as a vibrant fringe programme with debates, choral music, films and a book presentation.
For a few weekends, Zwalm awakens from the introverted poetry of misty landscapes and engages in a worldly dialogue with what is happening beyond the horizon. And yes, everything starts on neutral ground... in "Little Switzerland"!