Inspired by the astonishing pilgrimage of this spectacular painting, Raffaella Crispino takes us on a journey full of stories and seeds.

Inspired by the astonishing pilgrimage of this spectacular painting, Raffaella Crispino takes us on a journey full of stories and seeds.

Today, the smartphone has largely replaced the railway station novel. EUROPALIA and Behoud de Begeerte want to change this. We invited six contemporary authors to write a contemporary version of the railway station novel.

Creation of a mini opera, fueled by the stories of the passers-by.

'L'Europe noire: Some Girls want to go to Europe' is a poetic travelogue through Black Europe. Slam poet and musician Lisette Ma Neza uses the book 'Afropean' by Johny Pitts as a travel guide and preliminary research for a new performance.

'The Dating Project: What is Love?' is a game in which participants reenact situations from their daily lives by following instructions on their smartphones. The goal? To share stories, impressions and experiences.

For 'Screens', you get on a train and find yourself in another world: the windows of the carriage turn into high resolution screens showing images created in a model train landscape. As you travel along the Belgian railway network, you feel like you are rolling through toy versions of other landscapes and cities.

For EUROPALIA, Vandewalle designed four periscopic devices that offer different perspectives on the landscape passing by.

In the context of the art trail 'Endless Express', EUROPALIA presents the eponymous book.

Following the performance 'The eYe in the light in the eYe', Gaëtan Rusquet continues his research on the body-image relationship, this time in co-creation with Damien Petitot in the context of the exhibition 'Rinus Van de Velde: Inner Travels'.

'Jean' is based on a manifesto by artist Jean Tinguely and can be found aboard the train via the traveller's smartphone.

In 'Human Zoo', a voice can be heard through your headphones. It guides you as you walk through one of the most beautiful railway stations in Europe. In this gigantic building, you meet mankind.

In collaboration with the Auschwitz Foundation and Kazerne Dossin, EUROPALIA hosts the conference 'Trains and the Holocaust'

EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS and International House of Literature Passa Porta are joining forces to offer two Belgian authors—one Dutch-speaking and one French-speaking—a writing residency aboard a train travelling across Europe.

Tingalong. This voice is ready to take you on a trip. She is seated by your side on the train, swimming between the seats, the coaches, the bags and the travellers’ bodies.

In the framework of EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS comes a podcast accompaniment to the Ostend-Eupen train line, compiled and mixed by Ziggy Devriendt, also known as Nosedrip of the record label Stroom.

An open invitation to join the artist on his 'inner travels', the exhibition is a visual journey of discovery that offers a glimpse inside the constructed world of Rinus Van de Velde that is ever-expanding.

In an era when departing for another destination is no longer that obvious, CREW, with its installation 'Delirious Departures', once again seeks out the boundaries between reality and illusion. The installation transforms a room in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts into the departure hall of a railway station.

Mons Memorial Museum examines a little-known aspect of the First World War — the link between espionage and the railways — and shines a spotlight on the history of resistance in the Mons region.

Germaine Kruip presents 'Resonance', a new site-responsive work for the Antwerp Central station.

Associated with luxury travel, adventure, intrigue and exotic discoveries, the myth of the Orient Express persists, maintained by literature and cinema, in particular.

During one evening and a day of conferences, researchers and artists will offer alternative views on railway transport in Africa. A work-in-progress exhibition will offer a new cartographic reading of mobility based on five railway lines across the African continent.

'Travelogue: CHAR M.K' can be heard close to the artwork inside the exhibition 'Rinus Van de Velde: Inner Travels' at Bozar, via your own smartphone.

Kapitein Winokio made a festival song for kids!

How should policymakers respond to questions about climate change and widely accessible public transport in the coming years? What does the train of the future look like to the generation of the future?

On the occasion of EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS, Ann Eysermans develops several projects in co-production with ChampdAction and in collaboration with NMBS, Cinematek and the record label Cortizona.

'Everybody has to leave home sometime', based on a short story by Sylvia Plath, is a cinematic-musical performance in a world of sound, colour, line and form. Dolores Bouckaert stages this dark story about female agency and independence, about life and death.

Mohamed Toukabri and Eyes-B invite you into their alternative photo booth.

Sophie Whettnall is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is greatly influenced by painting—landscape in particular—and its durational sensorial experience.

Melanie De Biasio composes a piece of music that evokes the Italian immigration of the last century.

During EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS, Brukselbinnenstebuiten presents five city tours and a lecture about the presence of the train in the city.

With an illuminated sign, Laure Prouvost’s high-flying sculpture suggests that we, too, can move in the world with softer, more unpredictable currents.

In 'Desire Lines 86', Maarten De Vrieze looks at the 'walking lines' around the interrupted railroad line 86 that functions as a footpath, a connecting route or something else. The result is a number of walking performances and an exhibition in the former ticket offices of the station.

The EUROPALIA programme at Grand-Hornu includes guided tours focusing on the railway heritage, a podcast on the social consequences of the installation of the horse-drawn railway, a walk in its wake and a historical conference on the theme of railways.

This impressive one-time event will pay tribute to the first train ride on the European continent that took place in 1835, between Brussels and Mechelen.

Ben Fury returns to the Galerie Ravenstein to create a performance with 14 students of the Bachelor Dans Koninklijk Conservatorium - AP hogeschool Antwerpen.

Canadian academic Leslie Kern will give the keynote in this colloquium on intersectionality and mobility.

Professor Johan Lagae, doctoral student Robby Fivez and their students from Ghent University, will offer a new cartographic reading of mobility based on five railway lines across Africa.

Take a few minutes to sit down with a 'poète public' and leave with a unique and personalised poem: a gift for a loved one or yourself.

MUS-E Belgium brings active art experiences to children and young people. Participants are invited to step into the world of artists during interactive courses in which imagination, experimentation and dialogue are central.

We invite you to spend an afternoon and evening to discover the texts, written during two different author residences.

Flaka Haliti conveys the uncertainty of the self in a machine-led future.

'Hopscotch' takes listeners on a trip across two continents at Brussels Central station.

An initiative that gives people the opportunity to share and discover personal stories related to the experience of travelling by train.

What cultural and political possibilities do renewed trans-European public time spaces offer today’s Europeans?

For EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS and Slow Festival, Maria Hassabi will create a new durational performance with 35 P.A.R.T.S.-students in and around the Bruges Station.

Jan Ducheyne and Laurence Vielle will take various ‘last’ trains. With their poetry in their pockets and a diary, they will criss-cross the country. For the travellers who take the last train of the day, they will write and perform poetry, both aboard the train and upon departure and arrival.

A train moves freely on its way and crosses borders without being noticed. As does the train from Ostend to Eupen. Poet Carl Norac will write aboard of this train.

Sophie Nys discusses 'Zuweilen, zuzeiten, immer' during a talk with 'Endless Express' curator Caroline Dumalin at IKOB.

This exhibition features more than 140 Belgian railway posters from the SNCB/NMBS collection as well as diverse public and private collections. Artist Nayel Zeaiter will present a new work about the railways.

Inspired by the sounds and passing images she captured through the windows of moving trains, musician Farida Amadou presents an audiovisual installation in two parts.

In 'Different Trains', Reich combines string instruments with recorded testimonies of Holocaust survivors and American travellers.

An orchestra of 18 musicians retrace the path of a rhythm that makes Africa and the world dance.

The project will explore the state between wakefulness and sleep, the hypnagogic state one can feel while travelling by train.

Marina Pinsky proposes her own vision of a city in the form of a model-train installation connecting sculptures and scale models made by artists and architects.

An artistic and historical journey on the theme of the train through works by major artists of the 19th and 20th centuries such as Monet, Caillebotte, Spilliaert, Boccioni, Severini, Léger, De Chirico, Mondrian, Servranckx, Delvaux and Magritte.

The art trail 'Endless Express' is spread over different destinations along the railway line between Ostend and Eupen. Taking the public sculpture Esprit ouvert by Tapta as a symbolic point of departure, seven artists were invited to present new works around the stations and tracks.

Within a retrospective, CINEMATEK will screen classic Westerns such as 'Once Upon a Time in the West', Alfred Hitchcock's 'films noirs' and action-packed blockbusters such as 'Murder on the Orient Express'.

Che Go Eun discusses 'Machinalia' during a talk with 'Endless Express' curator Caroline Dumalin and Museum M’s collection curator Ko Goubert.

For EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS, LOCI offers a programme of courses, conferences and exhibitions related to the train and its architectural and urban impact.

'Another Town, Another Train' is a film installation in Verviers Central station that Chloé Malcotti developed in close collaboration with the children of industry workers in Seraing.

'Zuweilen, zuzeiten, immer' remembers the people who lost their lives in the floods that recently ravaged the southeast of Belgium.

'Esprit ouvert' marks the symbolic departure point of the art trail 'Endless Express' at Brussels North station.

'Machinalia' is a fantastical machine that inhabits the glass-walled waiting rooms on the railway platforms in Bruges and Leuven.

BOZAR will screen documentaries tackling social issues and mythical, inner or imaginary travels.

On the occasion of the exhibition 'Tracks to Modernity', Midis du Cinéma is offering a series of films highlighting the links between art and the world of railways. Animation, architecture and painting meet for a few afternoons in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.

Artist talk with Laure Prouvost and Caroline Dumalin, Lucian Moriyama, Maud Gourdon and Izabela Czarna, Rita Habib

The great Turkish poet Nâzim Hikmet wrote 'Human Landscapes from my Country' during a long imprisonment. Zuidpool turns these miniatures into a compelling epic, in the style of oral storytelling and singing tradition.

The role of trains and railways in European history; discover the story at the House of European History.

Inspired by the book ‘Afropean’ by Johny Pitts, slam poet and musician Lisette Ma Neza got on a train in Brussels and travelled around Europe in search of the Afro-European identity. On this literary evening, she shares a poetic account of her journey.

Benjamin Vandewalle derails the daily choreography of public space by investing the train station with dance and music improvisation.

In Boris Charmatz’ version of 'La Ronde', 16 dancers form a kind of implicit society: an intersectional and plural society, with male-female, male-male, female-female duets, of different ages and dance styles in all its forms and practices.

Board the train from Oslo to Bergen for a trip of more than seven hours with Joris Blanckaert & GAME.

Artists and graphic artists from all over Europe highlight the splendour of the night train.

More than 130 films, in all formats and of all genres, for children and teens between 2 and 16, will be programmed by Filem'On. In addition, there are many fun workshops and cinema concerts especially curated for children and young people.

Met deze double bill bundelen we twee bijzondere voorstellingen: circusperformancekunstenaars Mardulier & Deprez dompelen zich onder in de wereld van de truckchauffeurs en acteur Adriaan Van Aken neemt afscheid van zijn auto.

Korei Guided Tours offers guided tours on the theme of TRAINS & TRACKS