Agenda 2025 > >
K L I K • H I E R • V O O R • N E D E R L A N D S > >
S U M M A R Y
E X H I B I T I O N S :
• [Tell me your name] The Walking Body, MINHO University Gallery at Guimaraes Portugal 2025.
• [ S.O.S. The Royal Galleries & the thermal baths of Ostend] Belgium 05.04 > 29.06.2025.
Group exhibition | auction at the initiative of the heritage association DEMENT Ostend Belgium 05.04 >29.06.2025. Theme: conservation, preservation, new destination of the thermal baths and the Royal Galleries. Location: Studio 221, Nieuwpoortsesteenweg 221, Ostend Belgium.
• [Like the Black Mulberry Tree • Zoals de Zwarte Moerbei] • a social art project/installation by Anna Maria Mestdagh & Stefaan van Biesen about interviews asbestos victims] • Location: fort Liefkenshoek, Ketenislaan 4, 9130 Beveren Belgium. From 23.02 > 25.05.2025.
E A R T H . C O N N E C T I O N S :
Mary Patricia Warming : Archive of Art/NaturSci Movement & Art Science Exhibits • Berlin Germany & USA 2025.
• Artists: Louise Beer [New Zeeland/UK] • Dave Biddle & David Ehrenreich [Canada] • Adam Crosson [USA], • Brent Dedas [USA] • Frederic Derieu & Nathalie Erin [France] • Manuela Fisher [Switzerland] • Nikolina Kovalenko [Russia] • Dr. Agniezka Kozlowska [Poland] • Jordan Lab [Max Planck Institute Germany] • Les Marneurs architectural Group [France/Belgium] • Gerardo Nolasco [Mexico] • Nina Schipoff [Switzerland] • Stefan Schlumpf [Switzerland] • Alisi Telengut [Canada/Mongolia] • Stefaan van Biesen [Belgium] • Rosa Vitrano [Italy] • MP Warming [Berlin/USA] founder • 2024.
P R O J E C T S :
• Member and co-founder|organizer of Made of Walking. Member of WALC [Walking Arts and Local Communities] a four-year international project, co-funded by the European Union through Creative Europe. The project aims to promote cooperation between communities in rural and natural settings by using walking as an artistic and participatory practice.
• [Like the Black Mulberry Tree • Zoals de Zwarte Moerbei] • a social art project about memorial trees & asbestos victims ] • vzw Stoff Sint-Niklaas [Johan De Vos], CC Ter Vesten Beveren 2025.
Stoff is a civic platform that seeks to repurpose special trees as urban and landscape memorials. This is in the context of asbestos victims, with hundreds more being diagnosed with lung cancer every year. The result of an ecological drama and concealed pollution for profit, which is an acute danger to public health. Together with the Beveren library, Annemie Mestdagh and Stefaan van Biesen created an educational school program on the theme of asbestos pollution, ecology and nature awareness.
• [Art of Connection] • Hof Ter Welle Beveren Belgium 25.01 > 02.02.2025.
An installation by Fred Adam with Geert Vermeire & Stefaan van Biesen. Location: chapel and congregation room. International artist project about connection in a more humane world - with educational section for school children from 10 years old.
This project is also a pilot project in preparation for a forthcoming Made Of Walking project in Prosperpolder Beveren in 2026.
L E C T U R E :
• [Walking & Drawing] > lecture during The Walking Body MINHO University Guimaraes Portugal > 09.04.2025.
W A L K S H O P :
• [Tell me your name] is a performative walk, in which you give a name to plants that grow in the wild (on the street between tiles, along walls or along the road), according to your own poetic approach.
At the MINHO University at Guimaraes Portugal | 07.04 > 12.04.2025
• [Like the Black Mulberry | Zoals de Zwarte Moerbei] Hortus walk Hof Ter Saksen Beveren 11.05.2025.
P U B L I C A T I O N :
• [ S.O.S. The Royal Galleries & the thermal baths of Ostend] Catalogue DEMENT Belgium 05.04 > 29.06.2025.
• [Drawing & Ecology] Publication drawings Psiax Magazine Minho University Guimaraes Portugal 2025.
W O R K • O N • P A P E R :
• [My Daily Longings] • Limited edition of prints on paper [Biotop paper A3] 2022-2025.
• [Oratio De Hominis Dignitate] • Drawings & visions • an artistic research about the human condition 2025.
• [Wanderings | The Dürer Connection] • Drawings & registrations artistic, ecological projects 1990 > 2025.
A R T I S T I C • R E S E A R C H :
• [The Veronica Suite] • contemporary nomad stories based on the painting of Robert Campin [1378-1444] 2025.
E N G A G E M E N T S :
• Co-founder and member of the Milena principle • international independent art platform 2000-2025.
• Founding Member of the Art/NaturSci Movement • international art & ecology project 2019-2025.
• Member of ArtScie Exhibits community Berlin Germany Humboldt University • Mary Patricia Warming (USA).
• Member of Like the Black Mulberry, Memorial tree & asbestos project Belgium 2024 > 2025.
• Member of the Grand Jury, Sound Walk September Awards of walk · listen · create (WLC) 2025.
• Member and co-organizer of WALK [Walking Arts and Local Communities] a four-year international project, co-funded by the European Union through Creative Europe. The project aims to promote cooperation between communities in rural and natural settings by using walking as an artistic and participatory practice.
A R C H I V E • E S T A T E :
• The CKV (Centrum Kunstarchieven Vlaanderen/ Center for Art Archives of Flanders) is a central hub for the distributed care of art archives and estates. It is an operationally autonomous organization within M HKA (Museum Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen/ Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp), focused on the preservation, sustainable public access and active fielding of visual art archives in public and private management.
The private Van Biesen-Mestdagh Foundation manages the archives of the Milena principle (independent international art platform), Wit Urban-Team and Stefaan van Biesen's own artistic legacy and is in consultation with the CVK CKV [Nele Luyts, Jan Stuyck, Emma Sinnesael].
• The Private Foundation Van Biesen-Mestdagh • [Estate] 2005-2025.
• the Milena Principle • independent, international art platform • [Estate] 2000-2025.
• WIT Urban-Team : action group • art interventions • [Estate] 2010-2014.
R E P R E S E N T E D B Y :
• the Milena principle • independed international art platform. (Since 2003).
• Art/NaturSci Movement • international art community & ecology project Berlin.
• Walk-Listen-Create • international platform for walking artists.
• Gallery Ysebaert • Maenhoutstraat 60, 9830 Sint-Martens-Latem Belgium.
• Gallery S & H De Buck • Zuidstationsstraat 25 9000 Ghent Belgium.
W I K I P E D I A :
• research/publishing Wikipedia pages on deceased or still active artists who have made significant contributions to the world of the arts, both pedagogically and for their artistic legacy.
See last year agenda 2024 > >
Info about the projects in 2025 > >
• [Like the Black Mulberry | Zoals de Zwarte Moerbei] Hortus walk Hof Ter Saksen Beveren 11.05.2025.
In the early first half of the new millennium, Stefaan van Biesen initiated a series of walks in which his intention was to have participants make a plea or public conversation on the roots of sawn-off trees. This group practice resulted in several studies, Letters, drawings and works. From these events and experiences, the sculpture “Her-Steller | Restorer” [Dorpsplein near the Sint-Martinus church Massemen, Wetteren 2006] was commissioned by the province of East Flanders for “A home for a statue | Een thuis voor een beeld”.
So this work departed not from the classical Greek mythological “Daphne” story, but from an ecological, social public dialogue. The sawn-off tree trunk became a natural platform for speakers, nature giving us a stage for reflection and invitation for a meaningful discourse, a sanctuary for dialogue. Sharing views and experiences.
The participants in the Hortus walk on 11.05.2025 shared this natural Speaker's Corner. This as part of “Like the Black Mulberry | Zoals de Zwarte Moerbei”, a project on trees as memorials, in this case the Mulberry Tree as a symbol of the numerous asbestos deaths and victims in the region of Sint-Niklaas and Beveren and the Antwerp harbour region.
Tree talkers: Stefaan van Biesen, Eteinne D'Hollander, Christa Maes, Rika Van de Walle, Hilde Reyniers, ...
The Walking Body (TWB) is an international meeting of walking artists. The 2025 meeting is dedicated to ‘communities of change’, communities that are plural, on the move, and sensitive to issues of the social and natural ecology of the environment in which we live.
Photo by Rosario Forjaz
[Tell me your name] is a performative walk and act, in which you will give a name to plants that grow in the wild (on the street between tiles, along walls or along the road), according to your own poetic approach. You do not take into account their scientific name that has already been assigned to them before. The idea is to approach them intuitively and give them a name that identifies or defines their character or beauty. Or what this plant means to you in relation to yourself or to other participants.
'Weed' is something that only lives in our heads, only plants that we do not cultivate in our garden or parks, we call 'weed'. This is an exercise to define yourself as human being in our society by using these plants as a metaphor by associating you with them and determining their place in the natural world in relation to our society.
TWB explores local communities as dynamic entities in constant transformation, connecting people, territories and ecologies through movement, the art of walking and the relationship between the city and the landscape of Guimarães TWB will take place from 26th of March to 12th of April in Guimarães, in Bairro C, with the meeting point at the Garagem Avenida Gallery/School of Architecture, Art and Design.
TWB includes a week of walkshops, a round table with the invited artists and an exhibition (26 March to 17 April). This event is free of charge. Anyone interested in art and the act of walking can take part in these actions.
The walkshops take place throughout the week from 7th to 12th of April, on walks around the area with a focus on Bairro C, and the meeting point will be the Avenida EAAD Garage Gallery (Av. Dom Afonso Henriques 250). TWB has 7 artists taking part in the workshops: Geert Vermeire (BE), Jordi Lafon (ES), Miguel B Duarte (PT), Montsita Rierola (ES), Natacha Antão (PT), Stefaan Van Biesen (BE) and Rosa Soares (PT).
• [ S.O.S. The Royal Galleries & the thermal baths of Ostend] Belgium 05.04 > 29.06.2025.
Exhibited during three months in three galleries : Theobalds Boathouse, Vlaanderenstraat 17, 8400 Ostend | Studio 221, Nieuwpoortsesteenweg 221, 8400 Ostend | CAS - Contemporary Art Space, Frans Musinstraat 19, Ostend 8400. The exhibitions are free to visit.
Photo: ‘A Passage In Time’ by Stefaan van Biesen [2024]: design of an original postcard in 2D or bas-relief, Format: 10.5 x 20 cm. Drawing on Steinbach paper, acrylic, plexi and forex.
The initiative was launched last year because of the controversy surrounding the renovation of the Thermes and Gaanderijen. The Ostend city council of the time approved a cooperation agreement that focused on the construction of some 15,588 square meters of apartments and parking spaces on the site. Heritage movement Dement Oostende vzw immediately latched onto the dossier and organized awareness campaigns to have the decision reversed. In support of their actions on the protection and preservation of heritage, one third of the proceeds from the sale of the unique works goes to the association.
• [ L I K E . T H E . B L A C K . M U L B E R R Y ] • a social art project/installation by Anna Maria Mestdagh & Stefaan van Biesen about interviews with asbestos victims • Location: fort Liefkenshoek,Ketenislaan 4, 9130 Beveren Belgium. From 23.02 > 25.05.2025.
Guided tree walk and conversation on asbestos. Joint walk to the installation on the dike of Fort Liefkenshoek led by Stefaan van Biesen and Annemie Mestdagh. We listened to some excerpts from interviews with asbestos victims or their relatives and to ‘Herinneringen aan een militair bastion’ by Hilde Reyniers. We meet in the officers' quarters where Johan De Vos, inspirer of Stoff vzw, tells a story about the route of asbestos from its origins to the port of Antwerp. Afterwards, we engage in conversation.
Like the Black Mulberry is an initiative trail in collaboration with Stoff vzw, Stefaan van Biesen & Annemie Mestdagh, Meulenberg BinnensteBuiten, the Bib, Hortus ter Saksen and the Department of Culture and Nature Development. Through four guided tree walks, we will engage in dialogue.
It started in November 2023 with a new "letter to a tree" and it was an artistic, social-ecological stain that spontaneously expanded. We are developing this connecting project in collaboration with many local partners: artists, experts, doctors, writers and stakeholders.
After quite a few group meetings, worked out a broad, educational and promising school program (also collaborations with the libraries), where we could of course draw on previous Milena principle ideas of our own.
This participation project already intends to locate special commemorative trees and save them from disappearing. The black mulberry is until now a special tree associated with the numerous asbestos victims in the city of Sint-Niklaas, but asbestos is still daily making victims in the region between the port of Antwerp and inland. This due to the years of cover-up (inhumane monetary gain), in connection with the harmful deadly effects (lung cancer), of this product to the thousands of factory workers in the local asbestos industry. It wasn't ignorance, it was a crime in the name of economy and private wealth.
Through the efforts of many bystanders, this mulberry tree is now a screened natural monument and on September 22, 2024, it officially became a memorial tree for the asbestos victims.
• [T H E . A R T . O F . C O N N E C T I O N ] • Hof Ter Welle Beveren Belgium 25.01 > 02.02.2025.
A project with Fred Adam with Geert Vermeire & Stefaan van Biesen. Location: chapel and congregation room. International artist project about connection in a more humane world - with educational section for school children from 10 years old.
In January, they will bring their collaborative project No One Forgotten - The Art of Connection to Beveren. This project is about how artists from different countries can collaborate with local communities to heal landscapes using walking art, artist residencies and digital art. No One Forgotten builds on Stefaan and Geert's previous projects, Made of Walking and the Milena Principle, which connected artists from across Europe.
The project includes artists from Belgium, Portugal, Italy and Greece, some with disabilities, and ends in Beveren with a partly digital exhibition, walking activities, and group performances in the chapel and garden of Hof ter Welle from Jan. 26 to Feb. 2. This event builds on Made of Walking, a European project started by Stefaan and Geert that brings together artists for walking art in rural areas.They are already developing this project in natural areas in Catalonia, Greece and in northern Portugal, with Beveren as their next stop.
The core of their work is hospitality and collectivity. Their art emphasizes connections in a more-than-human world. The exhibition and group activities offer young people and adults the chance to experience new forms of art that merge technology, performance and nature.
• [ L E C T U R E . M A D E . O F . W A L K I N G ] 01.02.2025.
About the history and future plans of Made of Walking.
This project is also a pilot project in preparation for a forthcoming Made Of Walking project in Prosperpolder Beveren in 2026. Lecture/talk on the origins and future of Made of Walking.
Artists Stefaan van Biesen, Geert Vermeire and Fred Adam connect people with each other and with nature, and do not shy away from new technology to do so. Their work is not just to look at; it is meant to be part of, with attention to physical movement and solidarity. By activating senses, they create deeper connections with the living environment. Stefaan creates walking art and art combining nature and science, Fred works with digital art and technology, and Geert is a poet and sound/performance artist. Together they use art to find answers to both social and ecological problems.
Upcoming projects 2025 > >
• [ E A R T H . C O N N E C T I O N S ] • Mary Patricia Warming [Berlin/USA, curator of ArtScie Exhibits Community Berlin - Humboldt University].
Earth Connections will open an online gallery in Berlin in 2024 with agents in the United States: Gallery Green will appeal to art collectors who have a passion for art and nature-friendliness. Our art will continue to gain value as we continue to pay attention to the environment with the collection.
Art Science Exhibits Berlin has brought on board a social media/communications partner from the Erasmus Young Entrepreneurs Program to help with this new venture and promotions. Natalia Góral is moving to Berlin from Poland and, in addition, CIEE student intern Max Kuhn is joining the team.
Stefaan van Biesen 2020. Earth Collections, the Permanent Collection of the Art / NaturSci Movement
Artists: Louise Beer [New Zeeland/UK] • Dave Biddle & David Ehrenreich [Canada] • Adam Crosson [USA], • Brent Dedas [USA] • Frederic Derieu & Nathalie Erin [France] • Manuela Fisher [Switzerland] • Nikolina Kovalenko [Russia] • Dr. Agniezka Kozlowska [Poland] • Jordan Lab [Max Planck Institute Germany] • Les Marneurs architectural Group [France/Belgium] • Gerardo Nolasco [Mexico] • Nina Schipoff [Switzerland] • Stefan Schlumpf [Switzerland] • Alisi Telengut [Canada/Mongolia] • Stefaan van Biesen [Belgium] • Rosa Vitrano [Italy] • MP Warming [Berlin/USA] founder •
About: Set in motion by international artist mp Warming, Art Science Exhibits Berlin is an independent enterprise created, and consistently recreated, by artists and scientists. The exhibitions and public programs we present work to greater the sphere of ArtSci conversation - towards positivity and solutions. Our mission for the future of nature-kind is to help
Time is pressing • In over 4.5 billion years of geological time, Earth’s carbon cycle has suffered few extremes like today's. We and our fellow species are in trouble - here and now. The immediacy of the effects of weather changes, humankind’s degradation of the forests and oceans, and the intimacy of the effects on us, is stunning. And the driving force for the determined action of many to meet these challenges head on. And so, Art Science Exhibits Berlin has developed the most solution based partnership possible - with
