ITHAKA, WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
The Ithaka Arts Festival began as a one day exhibition in 1992 and has since evolved into a mature project. Originally, the exhibition took place in multiple locations at a time, but in recent years we have opted to use only one location, giving recent iterations of Ithaka a location-bound character. This year, we are happy to welcome you to the Keizersberg Abbey.
At ‘Ithaka: Down to Earth’, you experience nature through the lens of our artists. They express their unique experience of nature in a diverse array of disciplines, and challenge you to rethink that what has covered Earth since a long time before us. The artists remove nature from its traditional frame of landscape paintings and invite you to reflect on the relationship between culture and nature.
Ithaka is a platform for beginning artists. It is not easy to gain traction as a young artist, which is why LOKO Cultuur provides them with a budget to realize and exhibit a project.
Our goal is to bring students in contact with contemporary art. We attempt to make the festival as inviting as possible for them by organizing various activities. Both Flemish and international students are welcome. Besides students, we invite residents from Leuven or elsewhere to visit the festival. To fully enable that, we keep the festival open in the weekend.
Apart from the exhibition itself, we organize daily activities such as open mics, concerts and workshops. That means Ithaka is different every day and that you can unleash your creativity on the festival yourself.
LOCATION
The Kolveniershof (1740) was the guild house of the Leuven kolveniers (culveriners) of Saint Christopher in the Austrian Netherlands. The building, designed in the Rococo style with a U-shape and an elongated garden, is located on Vital Decosterstraat in Leuven. In the garden, they held shooting competitions using field guns. Due to financial difficulties, part of the garden had to be sold in 1787.
In 1797, the French administration abolished the guild, after which the building served various purposes, including as a theater, barracks, and headquarters for the Civic Guard. Later, the Institute of Bacteriology of KU Leuven was built next to the Kolveniershof. In the 20th century, it temporarily functioned as a youth hostel, and since 1994, it has been a day center for people with disabilities. The Kolveniershuis and Fuselierssteeg have been protected heritage sites since 1994.