You know, I’m starting to think that I enjoy seeing art museums.
I know, I know, it’s a crazy hypothesis, but hear me out. I went to another one! In Brussels this time!
Seriously though, I really have enjoyed all the art museums that I’ve been able to explore on this grand adventure. I’ve loved seeing the amazing scenery, the expressions of culture, and slowly seeing the connections between pieces and places… I mean, when I was in Warsaw and saw a piece about the same war that I’d just seen in Stockholm, but from the other side of the conflict?
Yeah, it was really cool.
Brussels was no different – the art museum was amazing, and fully recommended. It’s actually split into multiple galleries, which meant that I was able to focus my attention a bit on continuing my tradition of seeing awesome old art and beautiful landscapes with pretty lighting.
Yay landscapes and lighting!
I… uhh… don’t know what else to write here. I like art museums. I hope you like my photos of paintings of landscapes?
Just a quick note on this one – a beautiful park that I wandered about while catching up with my sister on the phone, while on the way to the art museum in Brussels.
It was lovely, simply massive, and all of the statues had this gorgeous partial covering of moss on them… they reminded me of what I feel like a park would look like a few years after being abandoned by humanity, and maybe they are? I couldn’t find any placards to explain them, or their current state, so it remains a slight mystery to me.
That somehow just adds to the mystique, though, so I won’t complain and I’ll absolutely enjoy reminiscing about walking along the quiet paths in the heart of the capital of the European Union.
The Church of Saint John the Baptist at the Béguinage… or, as it’s known now, the House of Compassion, sat a stone’s throw from my rental. It’s a pretty church, if looking a bit old and in need of a pressure washing, and it (along with the square around it) made for a very excellent landmark for my adventures.
Wednesday evening, after my adventures in the city, I realized that I hadn’t actually walked inside the Church of St. John the Baptist at the Béguinage. I’d walked past it quite a few times, but hadn’t seen the door open previously… or if I had seen it, I hadn’t quite picked up on it and walked in.
Today, I headed inside.
I was expecting your standard-issue church – some stained glass, a fancy organ, maybe some statues and paintings. A gilded alter, you know the drill.
I didn’t see what I was expecting.
I mean, okay. I did find all of that. I didn’t notice any of it, at first, though – instead having my attention captured by what had been made of the church.
It was an art exhibit.
It was stories of refugees, of asylum seekers, and of the homeless population.
It was a meeting place, with a long table with dozens of chairs in the center, seemingly waiting for people to come in and have a communal meal.
The whole interior had been reworked – and as I wandered, I ran into a docent who told me the whole story: I short, the church had become abandoned during COVID. Belgium has quite a few churches, and a dwindling religious population it seems, and so when the previous pastor retired… this massive stone edifice that would have been the cornerstone of any religious group in the United States was simply left empty. They tried to get a new pastor, but as none were available the congregation simply moved on, and left the building locked up.
Squatters moved in – but instead of defacing or damaging the building, they turned it into a home for asylum seekers and refugees abandoned by the system. The previous congregation slowly came back, helping them maintain the building, and the church turned from a place of worship into a place of survival… and then, when the asylum seekers and refugees found more permanent housing, it was transformed again into a memorial to their struggle and the struggle of so many like them.
I adore this.
I can’t say how much I adore this idea – instead of huge cathedrals laying unused, as a gilded monument to the power that religion used to hold, they’re turned into places to help those in need. I spoke at length with the docent, learning about how the whole process went, and got his contact information so that I could reach out once I finished settling into Ireland.
It really was an incredibly moving experience – all the more so because it was unexpected and unplanned. Absolutely worth stopping in.
