Ecole Mondiale – Filip Van Dingenen & Ive Van Bostraeten (Belgium)
"Ecole Mondiale" was originally initiated by King Leopold II of Belgium in 1902 as a postgraduate school to develop and prepare young men for a colonial career in the overseas areas of the European nation states. The first stone of the school, designed by the French architect Charles Girault (1851–1932), was laid out in July 1905, but the project was abandoned shortly after. In 2014 Filip Van Dingenen and Ive Van Bostraeten aspire to rethink this project through the design of 8 thematic ‘field stations’ in various locations. The aim is to redefine and investigate the feasibility of the Ecole Mondiale as an artistic and pedagogical project. Ecole Mondiale was presented at “The Colours of the Labyrinth”, on future expeditions, Galerie Waldburger Wouters, Brussels, 2014. At Open Days, Jan Van Eyck Academy, Maastricht 2014, and 'The Last Expedition' event at Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren 2013.
- Filip Van Dingenen
- (born in Brussels, 1975) studied Fine Arts at P.H.L. Hasselt (1999) and Cultural Studies at Vrije Universiteit Brussels (2001). He was a researcher at the Jan Van Eyck Academy (2013) and is currently PHD researcher at LUCA school of Arts in Ghent/Brussels (2012). Together with the Argentinian choreographer/dancer Barbara Pereyra he created the platform called “Fantaman Productions & Matelisto Contemporary Movements”, developing projects between performance and visual arts. In his process-based art practice, he uses a broad range of different methods and outputs merging participatory strategies with a social and ecological relevance, between leisure and education.
- Ive Van Bostraeten
- (born in Antwerp, 1975) studied Art History (UG-Ghent-1999) and Cultural science (VUB-Brussels 2000). In 2004 he founded the association “La Polyclinique de la Culture”. The semantic wordplay of the name permits multidisciplinary activities in the organization of small-scale events in Brussels around visual culture (vaiku sessions), traditional celebrations (the Japanese “Sakura Matsuri”), ecology/architecture (“the turning house”), poetry (“the library of preciousness”), the human body (“body sessions”) and food (“la polyculture de la cuisine”). Since 2007 the emphasis of the activities shifted to thematic audiovisual workshops for children. Since 2010, in the framework of “Natura docet”, workshops are offered in a picturesque natural reserve. The connection between man and nature, sacred geometry and herbalism are the key components. He became an energetic therapist, and conducts Tibetan sound healing sessions (“The Sonospheric alliance for the foetal womb”).
