The stamps will feature images of Siertabak (Nicotiana alata, known in English as Jasmine tobacco) and Prikneus (Silene coronaria). The seeds given away are the latter, a member of the carnation family also known in English as Dusty Miller or Bloody William.
“The idea to spread seeds with stamps came from the Post Office,” said Floraliën director Paul Vandenbosch. “It goes without saying we went for it right away.”
And why not. Raveel is arguably one of the most important Belgian artists since World War II. From about 1960, he was the central artist in a new figurative movement that emerged in Belgium, leading a group of artists that included Etienne Elias, Raul de Keyser and Reinier Lucassen (and whose joint creations included a three-dimensional work of art in the underground vaults at Beervelde estate near Ghent).
“A festival without workshops is like skiing without lip-balm,” according to the organisers of the Flanders Youth Film Festival, and if you have some chappedlipped young folks hanging around the house this Crocus Vacation, there are still places available for a variety of film festival workshops in Antwerp and Bruges.
1 The year in Flanders started with the introduction of a
ban on the sale of what?
☐ chewing tobacco
☐ flick-knives
☐ cats and dogs
☐ weekly newspapers
2 Early this year, Flanders Today
gave away a book of aerial views of
Flanders. What was the name of that
book?
☐ Aerial Views of Flanders
☐ Flanders from the Air
☐ A View from the Sky
☐ I Can See My House from Here
Some Like It Hot, Borat, The Party: Brussels’ Cinematek has a tradition of ending the year with roars of laughter. But this year it’s whistling another tune, choosing Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Rope as the final screening of 2009. In a career full of devilish suspense, Rope is one of Hitch’s most venomous films.Two students plan and execute a murder, for no other than philosophical reasons. They hide the body in a chest that, later that night, during a party with friends and relatives of the victim, is used as a buffet.
Look up at the trees outside the Museum of Fine Arts on Leopold De Waelplaats, and, instead of fairy lights, you’ll find brightly-lit neon slogans hanging from their branches. They have been made especially for the occasion by Swiss artist Marie José Burki, who lives in Brussels. The branches will be posing neon questions like, How is it when I’m not here? By offering up these philosophical musings to passers-by, perhaps Burki is wryly alluding to advertising slogans and posters that generally fill public spaces such as this.
“In Flanders people don’t like smart people, otherwise we wouldn’t have the politicians we’re stuck with,” he tells me. “So when you win the show, everybody really hates you and smirks in cafés that you’re not as smart as you think you are. Some people really do think that you actually believe yourself that you’re the ‘smartest person in the world’. It’s just a silly show, with probably the smartest name in the history of game shows. If it weren’t for the show, I would still be living in the south of Spain, but I would be having wine and tapas now, instead of answering your questions.”
Just the other side of the road is a series of non descript white shipping containers placed in a circle. I’m led there by world-renowned Flemish polar explorer Dixie Dansercoer, who’s chattering away eagerly about the show and how he hopes it’ll bring an important message about the fragility of our environment.
Silverstein began cooking at the age of nine, and by secondary school he was preparing dinner for his family on a nightly basis. After cycling through a series of kitchens (and other jobs) between Boston and New Jersey, he and his Flemish wife moved to Antwerp 10 years ago.
A history professor at Brussels Free University (VUB), he is a member of their Social & Cultural Food Studies programme (FOST) and is most recently the author of Food Culture in Belgium, part of American publisher Greenwood Press’ Food Culture around the World series.
Flanders Today is a 
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