Experience

BRUGES | Queer Tours at Groeningemuseum on 9 November 2024 and structurally from January 2025

Posted by Timothy on

On Friday 8, Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 November 2024 Het Entrepot in Bruges in West Flanders organises the PRISMA Queer Arts Festival. One of the many activities a ‘Queer Tour‘ at the Groeningemuseum, by historian dr. Jonas Roelens.

“You will find queer-related artworks in almost every museum room. But their story is rarely told explicitly. ‘Queer’ and ‘LGBTQ’ may be contemporary terms, but themes around gender, sexuality and orientation have inspired countless visual artists for centuries. After this tour by historian Jonas Roelens, you will look at the museum collection with a completely different perspective”, the museum website says.

Practical

From 2025

From 2025, the Groeningemuseum will make queer tours bookable for schools, groups and individuals on a structural basis, dr. Roelens says on his Instagram profile. 

About the tour

“Within our current society that is becoming increasingly inclusive, the LGBTQ community is more visible than ever. But what was that like in the past? What did people think about sexual desires that were taboo? About bodies that went against the norm? About identities that did not fit into a box?… And how were these ideas reflected in the visual arts? We will answer these questions during a queer tour of the Groeningemuseum.”

Dr. Jonas Roelens is a historian and guest professor at Ghent University. With his research on sodomy in the early modern Southern Netherlands, he won the jury prize and the audience award of the Flemish PhD Cup. Together with dr. Elwin Hofman and dr. Wannes Dupont, he wrote ‘Verzwegen Verlangen. Een geschiedenis van homoseksualiteit in België‘ (Uitgeverij Vrijdag, 2017). 

His latest book ‘De onuitspreekbare zonne. Sodomie in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden‘ (Sterck & De Vreese) will be published in November.

PRISMA ❋ Queer Arts Festival (8, 9 and 10 November)

This tour is part of the annual PRISMA Queer Arts Festival. A Bruges arts festival that celebrates queer creativity. For three days, PRISMA fills Bruges with queer joy. Queer stories and experiences are central to this arts festival. It is an invitation to be your authentic self, free from the binarity that limits gender, love and relationships.

Prisma Queer Arts Festival is a collaboration between Het Entrepot, Dwaalzin, CGSO and the Kringwinkel.