DARK WEEKends | Festival programme
GUM & Botanical Garden
DARK WEEKends shows what usually remains behind closed doors. For nine days, we highlight the stories, methods, and perspectives that researchers and artists use to 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.
Shame. Taboo. Grief. Themes we'd rather whisper than voice.
18 to 26 October 2025
Expo // art / talks // breakfast / matinee // tours // stories // experience / & more
All activities are listed below. Ticket sales start on 11 September!
Expo (UN)SHAME
(UN)SHAME makes space for what we like to leave in the dark such as feelings that are too raw, bodies that diverge from the familiar, truths too heavy for polite conversation. Here, shame is named, unmasked and kindly asked to relinquish its place.
18 October 2025 – 4 January 2026 (museum closed on Wednesdays)
Entrance with your museum ticket
With Hanne Lamon, Giulia Cauti, Ugo Woatzi & Loïs Soleil
DARK art | One Day I Will Make the Onion Cry
A ritual, an archive of tears and a moving installation. A place where grief for what will disappear is embraced. One Day I Will Make the Onion Cry is a poetic installation that gives form and space to grief associated with solastalgia, loss for what still is but will one day be lost.
You can admire the installation - simultaneously artwork and onion machine - for two weekends in the Palmarium of the Botanic Garden. You can follow a one-on-one ritual, guided by Barbara Raes and with live music. Participants will donate a tear to the tear archive, which can be viewed during the museum's opening hours.
Tears Archive
18-26 October (museum closed on Wednesdays)
Access with your museum ticket
Onion machine
18-19 October, 25-26 October | 1pm-17pm
Free to visit
Ritual
22, 24, 25 October (the hours of this ritual will be updated soon)
i.c.w. Beyond the spoken, Victoria Deluxe & NTGent
DARK Matinee | Short Dick Man
Screening Short Dick Man & aftertalk with Matthijs Janssen and Piet Hoebeke
In the film Short Dick Man, Matthijs examines why he has been burdened by the crippling insecurity about the size of his penis all his life. How did this uncertainty come to play such an all-important role in his life and, more importantly, how does he get rid of it?
After the screening, Matthijs and Piet Hoebeke will discuss the film and penile dismorphia disorder.
Sunday 26 October | 15h-17h
€15 (standard) & €5 (reduction), €3 (UiTPAS with accessible price)
This ticket also gives access to the museum and the expo (UN)SHAME
DARK art: Altar | El Conde de Torrefiel
This colourful composition of flowers and candles, set up as a memorial, was originally conceived as a décor for a theatre play. In Altar, the theatre decor is transformed into an installation in which colourful artificial flowers dialogue with a dormant absence, a farewell.
18 October - 26 October (museum closed on Wednesdays)
Entrance with your museum ticket
Collaboration with Europalia & NTGent
DARK tour
Our GUM guides will take you around the permanent exhibition. Using several objects, they will reflect with you on the topics of shame, taboo and mourning.
After the tour of the museum, the guide will take you to the collection depot where you can have an exclusive look at the GUM collection.
18-19 October, 25-26 October
At 10:30, 13:30 and 15:30
Duration: 2 hours
€6 + museum admission ticket
This ticket also gives access to the museum and the expo (UN)SHAME
DARK stories
Grab your headphones and discover some of the “dark” stories behind objects and plants, told by museum staff, guides and students. They will take you into a world of science and sinister experiments, of obsessive collecting and morbid fascination. You will find the DARK stories along the way during your visit to the museum and Botanical Garden.
8 October - 26 October (museum closed on Wednesdays)
Headphones available at the reception
Entry with your museum ticket
DARK breakfast
On the first Sunday of DARK WEEKends we invite you to the DARK breakfast, a breakfast lecture (with breakfast) in which three inspired speakers take a look at our Flemish mourning culture.
Evelien Jonckheere, historian and curator of the Huis van Alijn, talks about the history of the coffee table. Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Uus Knops explores the darker sides of mourning. Finally, Marthe Schneider, actress and theatre maker at the arts collection playField, takes you through the research project “Don't Forget to Die”, exploring AI applications that keep deceased people “alive”.
Sunday 19 October | 10am-12pm
€20 (Standard) & €12 (reduction), €4 (UiTPAS with accessible price)
This ticket also gives access to the museum and the expo (UN)SHAME
MuST chooses COMFORT objects
Some members of the Museum Student Team at GUM & Botanical Garden, MuST for short, selected objects that for them offer solace and hope in a situation of sadness, doubt or discomfort. These TROOST objects are immortalised on stickers that visitors can stick “on the heart”. In this way, they transcend personal besognes, memories and uncertainties and offer collective comfort to people with similar experiences. Discover all the TROOSTobjects and stories at the museum.
18 October - 26 October (museum closed on Wednesday)
Entry with your museum ticket
DARK Matinee | Lecture with Lara Staal 'De Gevangenis'
Together with four ex-prisoners, Lara Staal, house artist at NTGent, made a razor-sharp analysis of the failing Belgian prison system. Lara Staal is interviewed by Geertjan Zuijdwegt. Freddie Konings and Bahadir Kanmaz, two of the ex-convicts, read some excerpts from the performance. In doing so, they reflect on shame that comes with a prison sentence, but especially the taboo and shame that rests on people who are released after years in that parallel universe.
Sunday 19 | 15h - 17h
Dutch
€15 (standard) & €5 (reduction), €3 (UiTPAS with accessible price)
This ticket also gives access to the museum and the expo (UN)SHAME
DARK workshop: taxidermie
Taxidermy, the preparation or stuffing of animals, is a craft. With due care and respect, a dead animal can be “brought back to life”. But getting all the details right remains a challenge, especially when a pet is involved. For Katja Guilini and Frauke Vandekerckhove (Institute Sauvage), taxidermy is a passion they are keen to share.
A unique workshop where you'll spend an intensive day preparing an ostrich chick from start to finish.
Saturday 25 October | 9h30-18h
€60 (standard), €40 (discount), €12 with (UiTPAS with accessible price)
Minimum age 16 years old
Presentation Vulva Obscura | Hanne Lamon
Making a case for the vulva, taking the shame out of labia and showing its unseen diversity: this is the driving force behind Hanne Lamon's photo project Vulva Obscura. By portraying the intimate places of a hundred people with a camera obscura, she offers an unseen view of this source of life force. She lifts the veil on what usually remains hidden and subtly reveals a wealth of unique manifestations.
An exclusive presentation where Hanne talks about her motivations and her artistic research process. Some of the women portrayed will also speak.
A selection of Hanne's photos and stories can be discovered in the exhibition (UN)SHAME, on until 4 January 2026. The book Vulva Obscura is available for purchase in the museum shop.
Wednesday 22 October | 19h30-22h
Free with registration
DARK talks: lunch talks on the cutting edge
During DARK WEEKends, descend to the foyer of Campus Ledeganck (UGent) for four cutting-edge lunch conversations about shame and taboos.
Bring your own lunch, we provide fodder for conversation.
Do you dare?
20, 21 & 23, 24 October | 12h30-14h
Peristilium; Foyer Campus Ledeganck
FREE to visit
DARK experience | The Order of Disappearance
With The Order of Disappearance, theatre collective playField collaborates with visitors to create a collective embroidery. On semi-transparent plastic — reminiscent of body bags and clinical materials — they embroider insects that appear during the natural decomposition of a human body. In many cultures, these insects symbolise transformation and rebirth. During the embroidery sessions, they invite participants to engage in conversations about the meaning of death today in a safe, shared space.
This workshop is part of playField's research into how physical death is gradually disappearing in a digital society where avatars and online profiles live on, and how contemporary rituals can take on a new form.
Saturday, 18 October | 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Sunday, 19 October | 10 a.m. to 12 p.m
More dates will follow
Entry with your museum ticket
DARK experience: Séance | Nikolaas Martens
During DARK WEEKends, performer Nikolaas Martens conjures up ghosts in GUM & Plantentuin. Martens collects ghost stories and is fascinated by “spiritualism”, a forgotten chapter in Western history, full of sinister tales and mysterious objects. Take part... if you dare.
More info soon
Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 October | 15h-15h45, 16h30-17h15
€15 (standard), €8 (discount), €3 (UiTPAS with accessible price)
This ticket also gives access to the museum and the exhibition (UN)SHAME
Poop-claying
Poop! It remains something many people are ashamed of, while everyone does it. Fortunately, the taboo around it is being broken more and more, and we want to contribute our “shit” too. Come along poop-clay and spin the deftest turds or clean shit.
18-19 October, 25-26 October | 14h-17h30
Entry with your museum ticket
DARK workshop: Relational Objects & Somatic Memory
As part of DARK WEEKends, this workshop offers a gentle, poetic and sensory-based experience exploring how the body, matter and memory intertwine. Through simple gestures, biodegradable materials and collective rituals, participants are invited to reflect on invisible emotions - such as silence, shame or grief - and how they inhabit the body and the surrounding space.
No prior experience in art or performance is required. The workshop is open, inclusive and designed as a space for listening, creativity and care.
with Giulia Cauti
Saturday 18 October | 14h-17h
€25 (standard), €15 (reduction), €5 (UiTPAS with accessible price)
Language: English (inclusive and accessible to non-native speakers)
This ticket also gives access to the museum and the exhibition (UN)SHAME
i.c.w. The Italian Council
Fauna of Corpses | The search
At GUM, you'll learn that insects can help police solve a murder case. But of course, you have to be able to find them first! Search and find them all and win a fun surprise.
Also for children
18 October - 26 October (museum is closed on Wednesdays)
Entrance with your museum ticket
Studium Generale on DARK WEEKends | Sinan Çankaya
Studium Generale is Hogeschool Gent's stage that offers students, lecturers and interested parties a forum for reflection on society, art, culture and science. On the occasion of DARK WEEKends, the Studium invites cultural anthropologist and writer Sinan Çankaya.
In 2020, he released the book “My countless identities”. This book is a reflection on the changing dealings with “the Other” in the Netherlands. Reflecting on loyalty, displacement and, above all, the search for a home, Çankaya turns against fixed identities and refuses to tell a story within the confines of his own body.
Thursday, October 23 | 19h30-21h30
Tickets via Studium Generale Gent (TBC)
