ErfgoedApp Page 12)

Register

Wim Delvoye with Marcel, the tattooed pig, 1998 - © dpa picture alliance/Alamy Stock Photo

Wim Delvoye's tattooed pigs

Austrian Tim Steiner is a walking work of art. Between 2006 and 2008, West Flemish artist Wim Delvoye covered his entire back with tattoos. A German collector “bought” the work—as a result, Tim can regularly be seen with his back bare in galleries and museums around the world. The “owner” is even said to have

KV Mechelen in action at Achter de Kazerne, 1947 - © Mechelen City Archives - regionalebeeldbank.be

Achter de Kazerne Soccer Stadium

Anyone in Mechelen who asks about Achter de Kazerne will immediately know if they’re talking to a KV Mechelen fan. For them, the soccer club’s stadium is a place full of memories. Achter de Kazerne opened in 1911, seven years after KV Mechelen was founded. At that time, it was still known as the

Gregorian manuscripts from St. Bavo's Abbey, 1100–1600 - © Ghent University Library - topstukken.vlaanderen.be

Gregorian chants

Probably in the late 9th century, Hucbald of Saint-Amand (now Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, near Valenciennes, France) wrote down his ideas about music on parchment. At that time, music was largely passed down orally. Hucbald proposed a new form of musical notation. He placed symbols above the text, which indicated the

Joe Pancho in his studio on Schippersstraat, 1976 - MAS, Antwerp - dams.antwerpen.be

Professor Tattoo Joe Pancho

One of the first tattoo parlors in Belgium was Joe Pancho’s, which opened in 1943 on Schippersstraat in Antwerp. He was from Chicago and had several nicknames: Professor Tattoo, Sailor Pancho … It was no coincidence that his shop was located in Antwerp’s harbor district. Public opinion associated tattoos

Lang-Levenstraat in Ixelles, home to many African restaurants - Hemis/Alamy Stock Photo

Matonge

Matonge is a bustling neighborhood in Ixelles, bordering the Brussels Pentagonal District. It covers just a few streets and has been associated with the Congolese diaspora since the 1950s. But why do relatively few people of Congolese, Rwandan, or Burundian descent actually live in Belgium? Why are there

Chief of Otegoowgoow, son of a New Zealand tribal chief, Thomas Chambers (after Sydney Parkinson), 1773 - The Royal Society, London

Polynesian tattoos

In the late 19th century, a man from Samoa, an island in Polynesia, was in Brussels when he died of measles. The ULB’s medical school preserved his tattooed skin as a study specimen and a curiosity. (Today, there is a debate over whether it is ethical to continue to keep such human remains)

A branding iron from the Rasphuis prison in Ghent, 18th century - © Historic Houses of Ghent, Gravensteen Collection

Regine Beer's Auschwitz Tattoo

Many human societies used permanent, involuntary body markings to identify and exclude people. In ancient Greece and Rome, slaves or prisoners of war had marks branded or tattooed onto their bodies. In Japan during the Edo period (1603–1868), criminals were punished using the irezumi kei: murderers were