"Wastories"

The new musictheatre production by HYOID, Eva Reiter, Hannah Dübgen and Koen Broos is premiering.

Waste. The mountains of surplus, unusable or discarded material that we throw away say a lot about how we treat our world. With a mix of personal stories and images, composer Eva Reiter, librettist Hannah Dübgen, videographer Koen Broos and the four voices of HYOID weave together a musical theatre work. A meditation on what waste means, both literally and metaphorically, from ecological concern to fascination with recycling and reinvention."
 
WASTORIES is structured around the four elements of fire, air, water and earth, exploring the theme of waste in the deep sea and in the air
we all breathe, in the process of creating memories and our own stories, our personal stories.
 
Hyoid asked me to create a film scenography for this performance. 
 
The process of this performance has been ongoing since 2024. We did two residencies in Marseille, where we visited CEREGE, a research institute that deals with, among other things, almost invisible waste. Near Marseille and Aix-en-Provence, there are a number of historically polluted sites where aluminium bauxite, lead and other substances end up in the sea. In the film images, I have tried to make the invisible aspects of this visible. A series of other images were shot in Belgium. It is like my autonomous work, but now in motion. 
 
 Will you come and see the first two dates? 

3 October in Paris, FR
tickets via https://musiquesrivegaucheparis.com/billetterie-octobre-2025/
 
19 October in Leuven, transit Festival 20·21, Belgium
tickets via https://www.festival2021.be/nl/2025/hyoid-duebgen-broos-reiter

Behind the scene book Opera Ballet Flanders

the book is here, what a nice trip this was

"This book gives a picture of Opera Ballet Flanders anno 2024, in text and image, and at the same time it casts a glance into the future. Come face to face with our team, take a look behind the scenes and discover the magic of our artists and productions, even before they are on stage. Photographer Koen Broos walked in the wings of OBV for several months and captured the activity there."

the book is available at the ticket office of the opera houses
 
photography koen broos / design britt helbig / printing stockmans art books / publisher Opera Ballet Vlaanderen / composition maarten boussery, ilse degryse & wim van bree / translations catherine grady

see the book in video https://vimeo.com/894114771

solo exhibition The Baltic series / series 9

Opening on 29 September 2023 at 19h, at cultural centre the factory in Zaventem

Be welcome!

For The Baltic Series / Series 9, Koen Broos travelled to Estonia, Lithuania & Latvia in search of imagined impressions. It is a series in search of the story beyond the narrative.

"Koen Broos is all about showing us the world as it is when we are not looking; when we fold our eyelashes in front of our pupils and knead the outside world through a narrow cavern without touching it. That we look away flat-eyed and therefore see better; think we see better or want to see better what we desire. That our slanted eye corners and our dampened retinas will tell us more than a high-resolution scan of the world in microscopic pixels. That we may suspect what is, has just been or is yet to come. That you never know for sure what is before you before you have un-seen it. This is also how the Estonian poet Jaan Kaplinksi doubts what is now east and west, where he is now again, in this second or in gind room, and which pixels and shadows suggest something of a border or an enclave." Gerry the mole 2022

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the upheaval in 1991, a huge transition has been taking place in these countries. The rich heritage that old history shows is still there but at the same time, current tensions with neighbouring Russia are prominent. Broos explores where the boundaries lie. Can his images depict the tension between the past and the new world? Can you photograph something you don't literally see? Can you feel it? He asks the viewer to surrender and jump into his images.


Opening photo exhibition on Friday 29 September at 7pm, in the presence of koen broos.
Please make reservations via: https://www.ccdefactorij.be/nl/programma/the-baltic-series-serie-9/6065/

Cultural centre De Factorij, Willem Lambertstraat 10, 1930 Zaventem
the expo can be visited from Friday 29 September until Saturday 23 December 2023
Opening hours: Monday to Friday: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday: 12 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Series 9 / EAST ENDERS 

Expo opening 27 November 2022 at 3 pm in Cultuurcentrum Hasselt

For EAST ENDERS, I travelled to Estonia, Lithuania & Latvia in search of imagined impressions. During this expo, they present this new work for the first time. It is a series in search of the story beyond the narrative.

 
"Koen Broos is all about showing us the world as it is when we are not looking; when we fold our eyelashes in front of our pupils and knead the outside world through a narrow cavern without touching it. That we look away flat-eyed and therefore see better; think we see better or want to see better what we desire. That our slanted eye corners and our dampened retinas will tell us more than a high-resolution scan of the world in microscopic pixels.  That we may suspect what is, has just been or is yet to come. That you never know for sure what is before you before you have un-seen it. Likewise, the Estonian poet Jaan Kaplinksi doubts what is now east and west, where he is now again, in this second or in over there room, and which pixels and shadows suggest something of a border or an enclave."
Gerry the mol 2022

EAST ENDERS translates the thematics of transition and imaging to so-called Eastern Europe. Or should we stick to former Eastern Europe, given that there is only one Europe?

Historically, we could say that Eastern Europe disappeared under the bricks of the Berlin Wall. One night literally hammer and chisel and East and West had become non-utilitarian concepts. Or, it seemed so anyway. For a decade, cultural-historical differences were eagerly absorbed into European expansion and there seemed little offense. On the contrary, during the first decade of the 21st century, European internal evolution was completely overshadowed by global terror and war. From 2010, with the financial crisis, the gaze was turned back inside Europe, but then the schism turned out to be north-south rather than east-west oriented. The Greek financial crisis, the dire Italian crisis and, in the slipstream, suspicion against Portugal and Spain put the split on edge: the austere north versus the south, areas of impoverishment, fraud and profligacy. But an old scar remains a scar. Pretty soon, in the 2010-2020 period, east-west issues resurfaced: Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Belarus and now, as a sad climax, Ukraine.

EAST ENDERS is thus about TRANSITION and about the fixed image.

Expo East enders,

together with Sébastien Cuvelier, Lieven Gouwy, Annika Haas & Koen Broos
From 27 November 2022 to 1 April 2023

Be welcome to the opening opening Sun 27 Nov 2022 at 3pm,

afterwards Tuesday to Saterday from 1 to 5 p.m. Hasselt cultural centre, Kunstlaan 5, B-3500 Hasselt

photography for opera garnier Paris, FR

photography for opera garnier paris,
this affiche will be hanging in paris metro in mai 2019

on the picture Principal dancer Amandine Albisson
play made by  director mats ek

about the piece: "Major 20th century choreographer Mats Ek returns to the Paris Opera with two eagerly awaited new creations, Boléro set to Maurice Ravel’s mythical score and Another Place conceived on Franz Liszt’s Sonata in B minor. A man of the theatre, Mats Ek views society and the world with a sharp gaze, resulting in writing that is precise, uncompromising and sometimes disturbing. The generous, ample movements of his choreography disrupt the codes of classical vocabulary and offer a unique experience, as much for the performers as for the public."

photography and light koen broos
art direction with lise bruyneel
 

Residence isola comacina

I will be in residence on the beautiful Island Isola comacina in italy from of the week 27 june 2016
by the support of the Flemish community arts and heritage

a little research into the light
light which has long been a quest in my image / photography

more info:
http://www.isola-comacina.it/…/houses-for-artists-in-ratio…/

https://www.youtube.com/watch…

‘Letting go of all that you already know. Looking differently without knowing where it ends’ '

This series is different. A logical continuation for me. A search for more complex images with more layers. A traditional first impression. Monochrome colours, a strong presence of colouring. Light that makes the images vibrate. Until you take a closer look. I love showing that things are not unambiguous. Images show nuances, can be radical sometimes, take hold of you and suck you in. Finally lost! Letting go of all that you already know. Looking differently without knowing where it ends.' Koen Broos  

Koen Broos (1972) is De Spil's in-house photographer this season. He exhibits his series 'finally lost / series 7' in Ter Posterie in Roeselare. A selection of photographs he made during his many quests in Belgium and abroad. The real topic is light. The darker the pictures, the clearer this becomes. Koen Broos does not show what you are used to see, but he tries to find the tension. His camera forces him to look at reality differently. As the viewer, the artist searches for something to hold on to.  

Ter Posterie becomes a space where you can weigh up the inner world of Koen Broos with your own thoughts and emotions. An expo as a journey in the subconscious. Images are posted on a large billboard outside De Spil during the entire season. Koen Broos has specifically made these images for - and in - De Spil. A new picture will appear every month.  

https://www.despil.be/koenbroos

"The Trouble with WagneR"

a new book out in the US


writer : Michael P. Steinberg, director guy cassiers voor de scale milaan en opera berlijn ,
met fotografie van koen broos


"In this unique and hybrid book, cultural and music historian Michael P. Steinberg combines a close
analysis of Wagnerian music drama with a personal account of his work as a dramaturg on the 
bicentennial production of The Ring of the Nibelung for the Teatro alla Scala Milan and the Berlin
State Opera. Steinberg shows how Wagner uses the power of a modern mythology to heighten music’s 
claims to knowledge, thereby fusing not only art and politics, but truth and lies as well. Rather 
than attempting to separate value and violence, or “the good from the bad,” as much Wagner 
scholarship as well as popular writing have tended to do, Steinberg proposes that we confront this 
paradox and look to the capacity of the stage to explore its depths and implications.

Drawing on decades of engagement with Wagner and of experience teaching opera across disciplines,
 
The Trouble with Wagner is packed with novel insights for experts and interested readers alike."


order the book
https://press.uchicago.edu/…/books/book/c…/T/bo31043646.html

AntwerpPhoto: een nieuwe fotobiënnale

Herbeluister hier het gesprek in Pompidou dat ik daarstraks had met nicky aerts waar Maroesjka Lavigne & ik vertelde over antwerp photo dat dit weekend open gaat

https://klara.be/antwerpphoto-een-nieuwe-fotobiennale

INBETWEEN expo januari -march 2018 CC mechelen / belgium

with koen broos, filip dujardin, tine guns, charlotte lybeer, jo op de beeck, max pinckers, veronika pot, arno roncada & lieve segers.