An interview with Dirk Vermaelen
Dirk Vermaelen obtained a master’s degree in translation-interpreting (Vlekho, Brussels) and a second master’s degree in art history at KUL Leuven in 2003. He has been active at EUROPALIA since 2007, first as director of exhibitions and then as artistic director since 2014. Just before the start of the 30th edition of EUROPALIA, this year dedicated to Spain, he took a moment to answer our questions.
Can you first outline your main responsibilities as artistic director of Europalia?
For each festival, it is my responsibility to come up with the concept of a multidisciplinary program and to shape it in terms of content with dozens of events at artistic partner venues all over Belgium. This is done together with a team of coordinators and production staff, whom I supervise. The aim is to bring together different interests: those of Europalia, those of the team in the host country, and those of our cultural venues with whom we collaborate.
You have been in this job for 11 years. How have you seen this job evolve over the years?
It is constantly evolving and changing. Every two years, you work with a different team in a different host country, with different sensibilities and interests.
More generally, over the years there have been insights and practices that rightly determine curating and management more, such as decolonial thinking, to name just one example. It is also important to let the job evolve yourself. For example, it is good to let fresh perspectives in by having people in or outside your team propose and develop projects.
What are the most important moments that have stayed with you professionally and personally during this period?
There are a lot of them. A first one: our main exhibition on Brancusi for EUROPALIA ROMANIA. Nobody believed that it would be possible to secure loans, and yet in October 2019 we opened the very first Brancusi exhibition in Belgium, with masterpieces from all over the world. A feat that became a great public success.
And then certainly for EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS, the performance La Ronde by Boris Charmatz in the hall of Brussels North: a six-hour long human loop of dancing, singing and talking duos. A collective moment, an explosion of love in public space, just after the covid crisis.
A completely different experience was the collaboration for EUROPALIA GEORGIA with a government that became increasingly pro-Russian and conservative in the run-up to the festival, especially from the start of the war in Ukraine, in the middle of our preparations. A difficult process, but I am still very happy that we were able to give so many artists a place and a voice, with or without the support of their government, and thus bring a relevant program.
And today EUROPALIA ESPAÑA is running, with the main exhibition Luz y sombra. Goya and Spanish realism, which finally brought Goya to Belgium after more than 40 years (the first edition of EUROPALIA ESPAÑA took place in 1985), together with 70 other artists.
Your job includes a mix of recurring assignments such as determining and monitoring an artistic vision, building and maintaining networks on the one hand, but also projects of concrete duration, such as the well-known festivals. How can all this be reconciled?
Our artistic vision and building and maintaining networks go hand in hand. At the start of the preparations for a festival, for example, it is necessary to do extensive prospecting in the host country, in which you can meet dozens of curators, artists, choreographers, etc. in a short period, and thanks to the conversations with them, the artistic vision takes shape. I maintain networks at different rhythms, depending on the time that goes into prospecting trips and later also into practical development.
Are there any specific “wise lessons” that you have remembered from certain festivals?
It sounds like a cliché, but a lesson is that you have to keep an open mind and not start from prejudices.
Is it easier or more difficult to take on the artistic direction of such an art festival in 2025 than in 2014?
The challenges alternate. I can’t say whether it is easier or harder. But an ongoing and today more difficult challenge is to raise the necessary budgets to realize a strong program.
How important do you think culture is in entrepreneurship in general?
Income and partner search, cooperation are certainly important elements, to avoid losses and increase social impact.
Is it easier or more difficult to work with temporary partners than with permanent employees?
The festival runs every two years, so in any case there are positions that are less necessary or not necessary between two festivals, and it is perfectly possible and also good to work with temporary employees in the run-up to a festival. You have to make sure that you don’t replace too many permanent employees with temporary ones, because then there is knowledge, experience, and a global vision that you lose.
