DARK WEEKends | Arts & Science Festival

Shame, taboo and grief: topics that affect us all but often remain hidden. What happens when you explore just those topics we would rather leave in the dark? How do artists, scientists and makers approach what is unspoken, uncomfortable or vulnerable?

DARK WEEKends shows what usually remains behind closed doors. During nine days, we highlight the stories, methods and perspectives with which researchers and artists approach the unspoken. Not as a finished result, but as an open process: with questions, experiments and ways of thinking that invite visitors to feel, question and connect.

In this Art & Science Festival, together we make visible how people deal with what is dark and how you can shed light on it.

DARK WEEKends takes place every two years at GUM & Botanical Garden. Each festival we choose a new theme that balances between whispering and speaking out. This keeps the museum an incubator for themes that chafe, comfort, connect and surprise.

Do you dare to look into the dark with us?

• Expo: (UN)SHAME with Hanne Lamon, Loïs Soleil, Giulia Cauti and Ugo Woatzi

• DARK breakfast with Uus Knops, Evelien Jonckheere (Huis van Alijn) and Marthe Schneider (playField)

• DARK matinee with Lara Staal on 'De Gevangenis' (NTGent)

• DARK matinee Short D*ck Man - An intimate documentary about masculinity and self-acceptance and aftertalk with Prof Piet Hoebeke

• DARK art One Day I Will Make The Onion Cry | Beyond the spoken, Victoria Deluxe & NTGent

• DARK art Altar | El Conde de Torrefiel in collaboration with Europalia & NTGent

• DARK workshop Taxidermy with Katja Giulini & Frauke Vandekerckhove (Instituut Sauvage)

• DARK workshop Relational Objects & Somatic Memory met Giulia Cauti

• DARK workshop poop-claying

• DARK tour with exclusive visits to the collection depot

• DARK talks lunch discussions on shame and taboo

• DARK search Fauna of the Corpses

• DARK stories about objects at your own pace

Tickets available on 11 September 2025