DARK WEEKends | Festival programme

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What does mortality mean in an age where nothing truly disappears? Art collective playField, resident at GUM & Botanical Garden, explores how our relationship with death and memory is changing in a digital eternity.

During DARKWEEKends, you will discover the first traces of this research. Fragments of a thinking and creative process in motion emerge at GUM. No definitive answers, but openings and invitations to observe what fades away and what lives on.

One of these traces is The Order of Disappearance: a collective embroidery project. Take a seat at the table at playField and be part of a unique experience that interweaves personal stories and rituals. While a text is read aloud, you get to work yourself. As you embroider, a space for exchange emerges: about mortality, about what disappears and what remains. A tangible counterweight to the digital speed with which we try to ward off death today.

Take a needle and thread, listen along, and add your own stitch. No experience is necessary; everyone can participate.

Would you like to join us?

• 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

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

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

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 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