A seaside town along the Belgian coast isn’t the first place I would think of when ruminating on the street art capitals of Europe. Berlin, London, or Lisbon are all contenders, but Ostend? Surely not.
That is possibly down to my own prejudices and ignorance rather than anything else. As someone who spent my childhood holidays and weekends being forced to brave the drizzle of Yorkshire’s coastal towns in exchange for the possibility of a chippy lunch, these are not places that I have really associated with having a countercultural edge. Some towns appear more like the morose warblings of Mozza’s dreary ‘Everyday Is Like Sunday’ come to life as opposed to a hipster hangout. More the reserve of dog walkers and anoraked rain enthusiasts than potential Banksys.
For all intents and purposes Ostend, just a short hop across the North Sea, shouldn’t be much different. However, It is currently experiencing an artistic goldrush. The Crystal Ship has sailed into town.
Now in its third year, The Crystal Ship sees 15 nationally and internationally renowned artists head to the City by the Sea to use it as their canvas, painting huge murals and small interventions on its streets. Their work will become a permanent addition to the already art-packed cityscape of 40 large scale murals and hundreds of smaller pieces dotted throughout Ostend.
“The aim of The Crystal Ship is to bring art closer to people, to residents. Our approach is to have artists do their thing in the centre of town, right on neighbourhood walls, in all the places where people live, work, etc. The first two editions of The Crystal Ship have proved that art in Ostend is right there next to you, accessible and that this was and is enormously appreciated,” according to the mayor Johan Vande Lanotte.
It’s a sentiment that is echoed by Neils D’Hoedt of the Ostend Tourism Office. We sat nursing our beers outside the Copador on Langestraat, a pedestrianised street lined with trendy bars and restaurants. The achingly cool clientele picked through crates of vinyl set up on trestle tables beside the various drinking spots while in the street, a band were just beginning to play on a makeshift stage for Instant Karma – a music and record fair that just happened to coincide with the Crystal Ships launch date – and a large crowd of revellers began to gather.
I was enquiring whether The Crystal Ship aimed to bring more visitors to the city, or if it was an end unto itself.
“It’s a little bit of both…” he said diplomatically, although I could see from the music festival’s crowd and the thousands of holidaymakers that had taken to the beach to make the most this unseasonably sunny Easter weekend, that Ostend didn’t necessarily need help in attracting tourists.
“It’s more about bringing art closer to the community. We want them to be able to discover it just by walking down the street. We want it to surprise them in unexpected places.” It was clear that it was working. I spent the morning peddling along the promenade and out to the city’s suburbs on a rented mountain bike with a street art map of Ostend in hand. I was surprised by the kind of people I saw doing the same. Yes, there were teenagers and young people out on the hunt for murals, but mostly I bumped into elderly people and older couples – the kind of people that you wouldn’t normally think would have an interest in street art – out on the graffiti trail, excitedly searching for the next piece on their map.
Making the festival about community, rather than attracting visitors has given curator Bjørn Van Poucke a certain level of freedom when deciding which artists to invite to the festival. Rather than just trying to attract ‘big names’, he is able to be a little more esoteric in his selection. Bjørn rotated his beer glass on the table with a kind of nervous excitement. Niels had managed to drag him away from his duties for a brief moment to talk to me. Already the festival had been deemed a huge success and, buoyed by the reception, words poured out of him rapidly as he enthused about the artists on display.
It’s a process that takes him a whole year, visiting exhibitions around Europe or spotting new pieces that have cropped up on various walls around the world. He then selects artists based on what exciting work they have done in the past 12 months rather than on their reputation. That isn’t to say that there aren’t big names involved in the festival. Past incarnations have seen local superstar ROA leave his mark on the city and street art luminaries such as Phlegm and Pixel Pancho painting huge murals. However, Bjørn is also keen to invite lesser-known artists that he considers to be creating interesting work, and give them a platform to be seen. After all, it is about curation – although Bjørn doesn’t like to call himself a curator (he finds the title to be rather stuffy) – and putting together a diverse mix of different work from murals to sculpture with everything else in between.
This concept that means the festival has a good blend of both social commentary and light-hearted graffiti. One of the most striking pieces being Iranian brothers Icy & Sot’s gate that has appeared on Ostend’s beach, a commentary on immigration, human rights and the ongoing refugee crisis. In contrast are the dozens of humorous interventions daubed around the city by Jaune, who stencils tiny sanitation workers – an idea that was born from his own experience working in the profession – getting into scrapes and causing mischief wherever you find them. It’s a testament to Ostend’s local authorities that Jaune has had the ability to paint them essentially anywhere he wishes.
“Sometimes you visit these cities that you hear are great street art cities, and there’s nothing to see” He explained. “For example, I visited Barcelona because I heard it had a great street art scene, and the council clean the walls and remove the art. But then you come to Ostend…” He trails off and gestures around.
It’s the local council’s willingness to embrace street art and offer a helping hand to Bjørn that has made The Crystal Ship such an overwhelming success. They have given him total freedom in selecting walls and artists that would be unthinkable to most local authorities. “The city council totally understands the importance of investing in art and culture and we have their whole team of employees at our disposal.”
It also means that the artists can have the total creative freedom to create whatever work they like, providing they clear it with Bjørn beforehand. “No rules, just great art… However, we demand sketches in advance. Every participating artist, even the bigger ones, has to make a sketch in advance to convince me of their creative concept… I’m not that strict though.” He then consults each artist to select the perfect wall for them, although many of the artists like to create something with a local theme, waiting until they arrive in the city and are assigned a wall before sketching out their ideas. Usually, the artist will then sit down over a beer or coffee with the residents of the building and discuss their design. It has led to some work that is incredibly unique to Ostend.
There is ‘Requiem for Migrants, Requiem for the Liberal Order’ by Gaia who designed their lifevest filled with poppies and carnations after seeing the nearby memorial to lost sailors, or Wasp Elder, who paints local, historical figures. As we wandered around Ostend with Niels he pointed a few out for us, stopping to watch Ben Slow as he added the finishing touches to his mural ‘An Ode to Love and Everything it Throws At You’. He wanted to paint a portrait of local people and selected Jean and Jeanette, a couple that has been married for 53 years.
It became easier to spot the new works, even without a map, as the day went on. I found myself keeping an eye out for crowds peering up at the sides of buildings, knowing that they were stood there after discovering a new mural. “Will these be painted over next year, or just left as long as possible?” I enquired to Niels. He replied that they would remain for as long as it takes for the salty sea air to corrode them.
With this unwillingness to remove any of the artwork, it means that Ostend is now home to over 40 murals and over 400 smaller interventions.
“We are actually building the most important collection of street art and public art in Europe. All the artworks are made to stay in the city permanently.” Says Bjørn “And all of this happens in Belgium… In the small city called Ostend, where only about 70,000 people live. That’s pretty incredible.”
Where to Find the Best Street Art in Ostend
ROA – Located on Hofstraat, in the empty lot beside Hotel Bero.
I have stumbled across ROAs work in various locations across the globe; There’s his enormous Stork on London’s Bricklane, the opinion-splitting skinned rabbit that hangs from a wall in Ehrenfeld and I have even spotted a few of his works while I was passing through Panama City. However, this work, a little closer to his hometown of Ghent, is probably the most impressive I have seen. It depicts 5 monochromatic, hyperrealistic animals stacked one atop another.
As a little bonus, one of Brussels-based artist Isaac Cordial‘s miniature sculptures of a man standing on a balcony is attached the perpendicular wall.
Ben Slow – Located on the Ostend Hotel, Londenstraat 6
I was lucky enough to watch Ben add the final few touches to this mural and have a (very) brief chat with him just as he finished scrawling his signature beneath it. It’s called ‘An Ode to Love and Everything it Throws At You’ and features a real-life couple that lives in Ostend. Here’s what Ben said about the piece on his Instagram:
“I painted this piece as a celebration of both Jean and Jeanette, a couple that has been married for 53 years and has lived in the city that whole time. It was amazing to watch them together, playful and still so very much in love. A beautiful kind of love, the type of love that so many dream of and the type that deserves to be captured.”
Phlegm. 29 Victorialaan
To see this incredible monochromatic mural by Sheffield-based artist Phlegm, you’ll have to hop the ferry to the other side of the harbour. Originally a cartoonist, Phlegm has started to concentrate more on street art in recent years, feeling that murals have the ability to become part of a city’s architecture.
Elian – Located at the corner of Sint-Niklaasstraat and Achturenplein
Of all the art on display in Ostend, Elian’s work is the only thing I saw that concentrated on shape and geometry. What make’s this work so interesting is that it is anamorphic, meaning that the viewer needs to use a specific vantage point to reconstitute the image. Gradually, as you move towards the correct position, you will see the lines flatten out into a perfectly formed square, circle and triangle.
Telmo & Miel – Two murals located side by side at Nieuwpoortsesteenweg 110
The creative duo Telmo Pieper and Miel Krutzmann, better known and Telmo & Miel, have certainly left their mark on Ostend with works dotted all over the city but this year they have contributed two murals side by side on a building in Nieuwpoortsesteenweg.
Fintan Magee – Located at Guldensporenlaan 2
Austrailian artist Fintan Magee is known for his murals, and his work in Ostend is no exception. He initially had a different design for his mural in Ostend, but upon arrival he decided to change it up. The original character was replaced by a young woman from Ostend named Laura Maes.
My visit to Ostend was facilitated by Visit Flanders. However, all views expressed are my own.
