Wat kunnen bezoekers verwachten van Monster Chetwynd's Middelheim performance weekend?

Monster Chetwynd will return to Antwerp’s Middelheim Museum on Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 September 2026 for a free weekend of performances, workshops and interactive art. The practical takeaway is unusually simple: the museum park opens from 10:00 to 19:00, the programmed activities run mainly between 13:00 and 17:00, and visitors do not need to book. The museum advises people to collect its free visitor newspaper or ask one of the hosts in the park for directions.

The weekend gives visitors another opportunity to encounter A Friends Making Machine, Chetwynd’s first museum solo exhibition in Belgium and, according to the Middelheim Museum, her first exhibition conceived for an outdoor setting. The show opened on 16 May and continues until 11 October 2026, so the September programme is an activation of an existing exhibition rather than a separate display.

The centrepiece is Glow Worm Glue, a new interactive performance developed specifically for the Antwerp exhibition. At 15:00, Chetwynd and her troupe will depart from Proscenium Arches; a second performance starts at 16:00 beside Dragon Island, near the collection pavilion. The museum describes the work as a moving encounter through the park in which performers animate its sculptures and introduce visitors to a cast of handmade creatures. Each presentation is scheduled to last about an hour.

Earlier in the afternoon, the Iron Age Pasta Necklace Workshop runs from 13:00 to 14:30 beside Hellmouth V. Participants make jewellery from coloured pasta before presenting it to a character called The Discerning Eye, which passes judgement on supposedly good and bad taste. The premise is playful, but it reflects a recurring feature of Chetwynd’s practice: distinctions between artist, performer and audience are deliberately made unstable.

From 13:00 to 17:00, visitors can also enter the Shadow Animals discovery workshop and experience Tears, a 2021 installation involving a large rolling zorb. On Saturday only, short Close-up tours leave from the visitor pavilion between 14:00 and 17:00. The museum’s dedicated tour listing says these introductions are conducted in Dutch and require no registration. International visitors should therefore use the museum’s English-language event page and ask the multilingual visitor hosts for practical guidance; the core performances are visual and participatory rather than dependent on a long spoken explanation.

Chetwynd, born in London in 1973, works across performance, sculpture, painting, installation and film. Kunsthaus Zürich, which mounted a survey of her work in 2025, identifies her as the first performance artist nominated for the Turner Prize, in 2012. Her improvised spectacles draw on sources as varied as carnival theatre, medieval plays, anthropology, surrealist film and popular culture. Costumes and scenery are often visibly handmade, turning modest materials into exuberant theatrical worlds.

That approach explains why the September event matters more than an ordinary programme of exhibition tours. Chetwynd’s installations are conceived as settings for collective action; seeing them without performers reveals only one phase of the work. A Friends Making Machine takes its title from the troupe of relatives, friends, artists and makers with whom she collaborates. The museum says conversations and co-creation are integral to how the works develop over time.

The exhibition also extends beyond its temporary zone. Chetwynd designed Salamander Portal, a permanent entrance on the eastern side of the park. Middelheim says the gateway was developed with children and young people from UKJA, the child and adolescent psychiatry centre associated with ZAS Middelheim, and connects the sculpture park more directly with the hospital, UKJA and the University of Antwerp. Salamanders, which can regenerate parts of their bodies, provide the work’s imagery of resilience and renewal. The museum notes that the portal’s possible role as part of an external therapeutic environment is still being studied, so claims about health outcomes would be premature.

For newcomers to Antwerp, Middelheim offers a particularly approachable route into the city’s cultural life. The institution is run within the cultural network of Stad Antwerpen and occupies a park at Middelheimlaan 61, 2020 Antwerpen. The City of Antwerp’s official portal describes admission to the museum park as free and lists September opening hours as 10:00 to 19:00, with final entry half an hour before closing. Visitors should nevertheless recheck the museum website shortly before travelling because an outdoor programme can be affected by operational or weather-related changes.

The museum’s official information is available in Dutch, English and French. In Belgian terminology, Antwerpen is both the city and the gemeente, while local cultural information is commonly published first in Dutch because Antwerp lies in the Flemish Region. No municipal form, A-kaart or Belgian residency document is required for this event. Accessible toilets are listed by Stad Antwerpen at the service building and collection pavilion, although visitors with specific mobility needs should contact the museum in advance because the park terrain and interactive installations may present different requirements.

The weekend ultimately asks visitors to exchange the familiar museum habit of standing back for something more communal and unpredictable. That informality will appeal to families, performance-art audiences and people who find conventional galleries intimidating; visitors seeking a quiet, object-centred viewing experience may prefer another day. After the performances, the installations remain on view until 11 October. What is not yet clear is whether the museum will alter the programme in poor weather or impose capacity limits at individual activities, making its online event page the essential final check.