Pilar's new sculptural park on the VUB

Since the summer of 2021, ten new open-air sculptures – created by a younger generation of contemporary artists – will complement the permanent sculpture collection of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. They are exhibited in four clusters of two or three sculptures each, which are positioned close to each other in the green, open spaces of the VUB's main campus in Etterbeek. The works of art will stay there for two years and afterwards will make way for a new batch of temporary sculptures. This project is an initiative of Pilar, the cultural center located on the VUB main campus, and forms a new part of the Humanistic Sculpture Park.

The new works are located in four clusters of two to three sculptures each in the green, open spaces of the Brussels Humanities, Sciences & Engineering Campus. The works of art will remain there for two years and afterwards will make way for a new batch of temporary sculptures. As a 'House for Art and Science', Pilar supports the cultural entrepreneurship of young people and we offer creative space to emerging artists. A first cluster of the temporary sculpture project was completed by the residents of Barak Lili M, the artist studios of Pilar located on the site of See U. We gave the curatorship of the other clusters to Leyla Aydoslu, Elise Eeraerts and Kasper Devos. They invited fellow artists to create a work for the campus and chose whether or not to supplement their cluster with their own sculpture. In this way, a diverse collaboration with both Belgian and foreign artists arose. The artistic assignment of the participating artists was to create an in situ sculpture, inspired by the context of the university campus and the liberal-humanistic character of the VUB. However, free play was given to the creation and the implantation in the environment. This resulted in a series of works of art that form a challenging addition to the permanent collection of the Humanistic Sculpture Park, both visually and substantively. Several of the recent works of art are linked to the theme of activism. Other sculptures form a visual response to the social and architectural context of the campus.