WIE BEN IK
In a world of unprecedented transformation, I am exploring liminal space to provide a framework for how we can navigate and what can take root when we open ourselves to other ways of being en being together with the unknown and uncomfortable. I share my expertise through the creation of artworks and artistic projects, and through guiding individuals and businesses through transitions.
As a visual artist, I conduct in-depth research in various cultures. I have participated in exhibitions, projects and residencies in China, Switzerland, France, and Morocco, where I lived for five years and researched trance healing ceremonies and the connection between, humans, nature, and the spirit world. I share this research through artistic interventions, such as installations, videos, textile art, and text. I also regularly organize artistic projects and collaborations with other artists, dancers, anthropologists, shamans, etc. In Marrakech, I initiated a laboratory for intimate artistic collaborations.
On the other hand, I focus on guiding people through transitional moments through a creative coaching process with textiles, Stories For Inanna. I provide coaching, organize women's circles, and offer intuitive creative workshops.
ARTISTIEKE INTERVENTIES
An experimental non-fiction text based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, read to the deceased for 49 days. Using texts on the transitional stages between dying and rebirth, it guides them through experiences that consciousness has in this liminal space. A Fly in a Salon was partially translated into Darija and performed in collaboration with Mostafa Lhanch, a storyteller who maintains a generations-long tradition on Marrakech's famous Jemaa el-Fna square.
Playing on the Wasteland, Living at the Margins - the shoreline people of Douar Koudia
An interdisciplinary anthropological and artistic project about a landscape slowly turning into a city. It looks at the inner workings of the wasteland of Douar el Koudia, located on the border of urban and peri-urban Marrakech. What happens when we shift the focus to the wasteland as the centre rather than the periphery? If we look at its own inner workings and interactions (or lack thereof) of the people and entities it brings together, rather than questioning its integration into the larger city?
Our aim is to propose a perspective in which the wasteland and its shoreline people are central - as a place where identities and local cultural meanings are constantly being constructed, collective solidarity is being woven together, relationships between different populations are being negotiated, where history leaks into the present and where the future still lies waiting to transform this place once and for all.
Experimental fieldwork in Tighmert, an oasis in southwestern Morocco, with anthropologist Alexandra Anzid Kollárová.
By knocking on doors in the oasis and asking (using a recording in Darija) for a piece of old melfa and sewing it together, they connected with the women of the oasis and their tradition. After a week of gathering and collective embroidery, they used this khayma as a backdrop for a marhouf. A marhouf is a gathering where women come together to eat and celebrate, which was organised for this occasion by Soukaina Dabbah and Rachida Dabbah, two women from the village. With these actions, Van Dyck and Anzid Kollárová wanted to undermine the classical notion of the visible and known terrain of the Tighmert oasis being traditionally male-dominated. Moreover, they questioned the often overlooked ethical approach to artistic collaborations in a postcolonial context."
A publication about loneliness, silence and isolation during a three-month summer sojourn in a large empty hotel in high Alpine territory.
Dance performance with Mohamed Lamqayssi about the liminal space created when changing context. Inspired by the way Al-Hallaj, a Persian mystic, poet and teacher of Sufism uses line diagrams and symbols to express things he cannot put into words.
JUJlab is a laboratory for intimate interdisciplinary exchange initiated in Marrakech. It brings together two artists for a period of two weeks for an experimental exchange of working processes and inspirations. The result focuses on intimacy and exchange with the public, in the form of a guided tour by the artist, a ceremony, a silent walk, a studio visit, ...
A liminal triptych spread over three new moon/winter solstice evenings.
A sacred circle about falling into the abyss. A game of petanque to trust the path and set an intention. A walk along the bridges of the Seine in Paris to let die what must die, live what must live. With visual artist Paola Korošec.
Intrusion is a multimedia installation created during a three-day funeral ceremony led by He XiuDong, a Dongba shaman priest in Lijiang, Yunnan in southwest China, made during a residency at Lijiang Studio. It addresses the relationship between the world of spirits and the natural world, as well as the figures of speech that reveal the traffic between art and anthropology, such as appropriation, materiality and texture, and how this is part of discourses on power and containment. Intrusion consists of two videos and an embroidered patchwork.
STORIES FOR INANNA
Stories For Inanna offers an antidote to our current dystopian times, honouring the unique, imperfect, and intuitive. By recognising the importance of marking important life passages that are individually and collectively meaningful, and consciously creating time and rituals that honour and celebrate the unique growth processes of our lives, we can be more present to ourselves.
Quilts bring connection and meaning during periods where the old leaves us and the
new is yet to be defined. These times of change can be very exciting and hopeful but are also often marked by pain, sadness, discomfort, fear and uncertainty. Quilts have provided comfort and support in such moments for generations, telling happy and sad, planned and unexpected stories. Stories For Inanna offers support for big and small milestones such as graduation, moving house, birthday, loss, death, abortion, saying goodbye to a loved one, pregnancy, illness, healing, childbirth, menopause, surgeries.
We will listen to your unique story and work with your personal textiles to create a quilt. There are some personal moments before, during and after the process and everything concludes with a ceremony. It is an intense process that supports your change and can take a short or long time.
Have a quilt made for yourself as a moment of self-care and introspection, make one from old clothes you are still attached to but can no longer wear due to illness or surgery, have a baby quilt made from your maternity clothes, make a quilt from textiles of a deceased person, ...
CIRKELS
In Marrakech, I organised monthly women's circles; I am currently starting this in Brussels as well.
Occasionally, I am asked to organise circles in an artistic context. For instance, I organised circular artist talks for JUJlab in Marrakech, a circle combined with play and night walk to wake up from the COVID period at Cité des Arts Paris, a circle around care and after-performance blues at the Green Corridor in Brussels.
These circles are adapted to the context, usually consisting of a guided meditation, some body exercises and I integrate natural elements where possible. The core is the sharing circle, where we listen without judgement, interrupting, asking or advising.
WORKSHOPS
As a workshop facilitator, I create space for individuals to explore their creativity, harness their intuition and connect with their inner power. I have a master's degree in visual arts, research in visual arts and am a certified intuitive coach. Alongside this, I teach Reiki, take training in non-violent communication and have over a decade of experience in meditation, breath work, yoga and somatic work. I participated in healing ceremonies in different cultures.
Examples
Unlock Your Creativity With Tarot
Tarot cards are more than just divination; each card is a treasure trove of symbolism, representing challenges and themes we all face in life. In this workshop, we use Tarot as inspiration to spark your creativity and imagination and harness the power of self-exploration. We will explore and develop your self-created imagery and encourage self-expression and communication by diving deep into your subconscious.
Quilting for the Creative Process
What blocks your creative flow / what would your work look like uninterrupted?
A quilting workshop on the creative process for the costume design department at the Academy of Antwerp
Storytelling and Collective Writing voor kinderen
In collaboration with storyteller Mohamed Koucham, we conducted playful exercises in this workshop around the oral tradition of storytelling in Morocco for LE18 in Marrakech.
COACHING
As a certified intuitive coach, I offer a tailor-made coaching programme, together we look at what you need. We work with experiential, creative, connecting and expanding exercises. We teach you to come into your power by grounding, centring, releasing stress and taking care of your energy. Through energetic intuitive coaching, I try to create inner peace, space, and safety to let occur what is needed.
