Akt #6

Akt #6

AKT VI shines light on blank spaces and wrong turns. The full spectrum of creativity is not always straight forwards.

For Studio KO, featured in this issue, there lies the precious nature of humanity: in the texture of meanderings, mistakes, even cast-offs. For Vincenzo De Cotiis, it can be found in patinated surfaces: stressed, challenged and excavated over time.

Curious about the journey, we retrace the methods of architects Nidus, Danielle Siggerud and Arnout De Sutter. Then step inside a Parisian apartment with Nóbrega Borghmans, and a retreat in the British countryside with Andy Kerstens, in order to step into their processes.

We find architect Vincent Van Duysen in Comporta, between sunken villas, sun and shadow, with his feet in the sand: in a moment of suspension. We meet architect Leopold Banchini in Morocco at his off-grid environmental living system built of rammed earth. Then visit La Congiunta, a cult, quasi-spiritual museum in rural Switzerland imagined by Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn and architect Peter Märkli.

With thick walls and grounding forms, these defensive spaces insulate and distance us from a chaotic world beyond with growing urgency. A search for this kind of space defines the journey of Valentin Loellmann: “All my life, I’ve been searching for a home, a safe place. If I don’t find it while I’m alive, then maybe I’ll only find peace after I’m gone,” he says.

Writer Micha van Dinther embraces the fear of silence during a pilgrimage to the Mariavall convent in Sweden, discovering it far from empty yet filled with mental revelation. Architect Nicolas Schuybroek contemplates the ‘charged’ silence of the understated ceramics of Pierre Culot that similarly seem to command self-reflection.

Silent voids are also filled with the potential for expression. Giving us courage, Belgian model and musician Kim Peers fearlessly occupies the stage as an otherworldly presence in theatrical performances with her post-punk band Skemer.

Paradoxically, it is in storms and dark skies that Peers finds the most truth and calm. Which is why it is in the uncertainty, struggle, doubt and the labour of love, that this issue of AKT invites you to dwell.

About Akt:

AKT is an independent magazine about Belgian culture.

Though the magazine is a periodical, it aspires to be timeless. Each volume captures the people, design and essence of 21st century Belgium through stories that are worthy of continued and repeated reflection. Photography guides readers into the world of AKT. The minimal style draws focus to the depths of materiality and dimensions of colour. It asks readers to pause longer and look closer. Each frame is studied and deliberate – captured, it seems, with the patience of a painter who works slowly on his masterpiece for months.

Combining photography, with words and graphic design, AKT reaches an authentic and ‘site-specific’ aesthetic that draws off the flat, rolling landscape and northern European climate of Belgium itself. It is an aesthetic that is hedonistic and atmospheric in its ability to reach all of the senses and transport the reader.

AKT stands for “A kind tribute”, which expresses the approach of the founders. Belgian natives Jessy Van Durme and Piet-Albert Goethals founded the magazine in 2019 on their attuned sensibilities of curiosity, appreciation, and enlightenment.