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’.