Aalbeke, village of passage

When renovating the village center, the decision was made to incorporate a work of art that related to Aalbeke, to work and life in the past and present, to cross-border work, to pilgrims, to being on the move, to passing through, to transit. It had to be a work of art that told a story, so that anyone viewing it would learn something interesting. And ideally, it had to involve clay—the clay that is found everywhere in the subsoil here.

The choice fell on ceramics and on the Dutch artist Peter de Graaff (b. 1961; www.peterdegraaff.com). From conversations with local people, he distilled 12 “stories” that could be depicted in ceramic tiles. He drew these stories, as it were, with chalk on the sidewalk. The tiles are laid out in 12 locations in sections of approximately 1.5 m². The pedestrian walks or “makes a pilgrimage” over a distance of a few hundred meters from one tile to the next.

📏 1.25 km or 1,900 steps
🕑 1 hour
⭐ Easy
📍 Sint-Corneliuskerk Aalbeke parking lot
🏁 Sint-Corneliuskerk Aalbeke parking lot