Art’s Birthday 2025: An evening of winter rituals

19:30 – 23:00

Free entrance for all

Programme

19:30 : Doors open and welcome

Shelly’s coat, (fire) sculpture and performance by Sharon van Overmeiren
Alongside Sharon van Overmeiren we honour the journey of metamorphosis.
The artist has conceived a sculpture as a ritual: a clay figure in a beast-shaped shell is ignited throughout the evening. Gradually, as the temperature rises, the clay undergoes its transformation. The shell falls away, revealing the figure now solidified into stone.

20:00

State of the Art speech by Kasper Bosmans

20:15

Songs by Ravekoor choir

20:30               `

Ye Olde Cake, birthday cake and winter drinks created by Table Dance (Michelle Woods & Roman Hiele)

Michelle serves the cake, Roman serves the sounds, and together they move around us with cake and sound!

Limited edition gift by Bruno Zhu

21:00 – 21:40

M I M I performs a live DJ set, weaving together her interests in sounds, healing traditions, and nature. A delicate and holistic moment, drawing attention to the different facets of her practice.

21:40 – 22:40

° LIFE IS A VIEZE CIRKEL ° concert by Vieze Meisje

Vieze Meisje and tune partner Azertyklavierwerke invite you to join the Vieze Cirkel [Vicious Circle]a cathartic and collective celebration which holds the middle ground between concert, afterparty, and cult.

22:45

Songs by Ravekoor

The singers of Ravekoor accompany you on your way out, offering a smooth return to your individual realities thanks to the supportive power of collective singing.

23:00   end

Throughout the evening:

Can I be in your house, INBOX presentation by Janina Fritz

Over recent years, Janina Fritz has developed a body of work titled Lamps, dreaming of being a fire, comprising illuminated sculptures made from blown glass and ceramics. For her exhibition Can I be in your house at M HKA’s INBOX, a selection of these works is displayed alongside ceramic reliefs that recall architectural fragments.

As part of King of Klowns, Nástio Mosquito’s major survey exhibition currently on view at M HKA, the artist invites you to take part in short philosophical conversations.

All are welcome, young and old, to join us in the Salon for a deep dive into the book A Santa Story. The tale, told by Nástio Mosquito and illustrated by Ogo Mendonça, reimagines Christmas in a fresh light. Breaking away from the colonisation of the imagination, the story sparks new visions and dreams, each spoken in a unique language.

Extras:

Warm outdoor benches provided by Instituut voor Volkswarmte

Guest artists

Kasper Bosmans is an artist living and working in Brussels. Known for his multifaceted and divergent approaches to art-making, Bosmans’s works range from sculpture and installation to painting and drawing. His practice is a complex concoction of high art and literature, popular culture, mythology, and anthropology viewed through a queer and playfully minimalist lens that subversively observes and reinvents dominating narratives. Taking an editorial approach, Bosmans cuts, pastes, and brings together anecdotes and stories, which traverse all histories, cultures, and societies.

Janina Fritz is an artist living and working in Brussels and Bremen. Her primary medium is ceramics, creating sculptures and spatial environments that explore the ongoing relationship between the corporeal and the structural. By investigating the both public and domestic surroundings that welcome, accommodate, or manage bodies and their traces—such as liquids—, Fritz conjures eruptions born from the very habitats that are meant to contain us.

Nástio Mosquito is a creative protagonist living and working in Ghent, who trespasses into many different fields, including contemporary art. His artwork, which is primarily in video and performance, encompasses the invention of multiple personas. Taking inspiration from various worlds—from culture to politics and mass media—and utilising an unbridled imagination, each artwork forms a portrait of a whole new personality and worldview. King of Klowns, now on view at M HKA, is Mosquito’s first major museum overview. It considers the evolution of his practice, as well as his transgressions into, and out of, art

Maria Muehombo (M I M I) is a transdisciplinary artist, DJ, and researcher based in Brussels, originally from Zambia and Angola. Her process-driven work focuses on a holistic exploration of sound and nature. Through her travels around the world, she studies ancestral and traditional herbal medicine, weaving together this knowledge with a sound practice based on bioacoustic recordings, the use of chimes and gongs, and the exploration of frequencies and deep listening methods. With an eco-centred approach, she emphasises building resilience and discovering tools for a restorative, therapeutic practice. M I M I is an artist affiliate at Beursschouwburg (2024-2026).

Sharon van Overmeiren is an artist living and working in Antwerp. For over a decade, she has developed a sculptural and material practice using clay, bronze, and beeswax. Her “fictional sculptures” find inspiration in the symbols and traditions of cultural practices ranging from pop to ancient vernacular. A collage-based approach allows van Overmeiren’s practice to stand free from any fixed interpretation, the artist instead opts for transformative dynamics and celebrating the here and now.

On Sunday 19 January, 2 days following Art’s Birthday, Sharon van Overmeiren’s solo exhibition Jacuzzi of Despair opens in De Warande in Turnhout.

Rave Koor is a self-initiated choir welcoming singers from all backgrounds and levels, whether pitch-perfect or out-of-tune. The choir was formed to end raves on a gentler note, guiding partygoers towards the exit with communal singing, turning the typical “come-down” into a soft landing.

Initiated by artist and cook Michelle Woods and music producer and performer Roman Hiele, Table Dance was a restaurant and event space rooted in Antwerp between X and X. More aptly described as a practice than a venue, Table Dance now continues to operate nomadically as an ever-evolving body, although the duo officially celebrated its funeral in 2023. Table Dance made a name as providers of fine food, drinks, and entertainment. Existing far away from any standards, their practice consists of a hybrid mix of cuisine, music, performance, and scenography cherishing freedom, creativity, and collective quality time above all. Table Dance has worked closely with artist residency Morpho and was in residence at MUHKAFE in 2022.

Vieze Meisje is the singing, performing, and all-encompassing second self of Maya Mertens. She performs idiosyncratic poetry that is at once heart-warmingly honest, hilariously funny and, at times, brutally elegant. The artist is committed to establishing arbitrary collectivity in a world that is constantly circling itself. Together with her producing brother-from-another-mother Azertyklavierwerke, she hosts the “Vieze Cirkel” [Vicious Circle], holding the middle ground between concert, afterparty and cult.

Bruno Zhu is an artist living and working in Amsterdam and Viseu. Influenced by fashion design, publishing, and scenography, he uses fiction to rewrite agency, authorship, consumption, and power. As of 25 January, M HKA presents OUT, a commissioned exhibition by Bruno Zhu held as part of the museum’s IN SITU exhibition series.