What we do

These city festivals typically culminate in an international exhibition at M - Museum Leuven. The chosen theme of the festival is thoroughly examined through various disciplines and perspectives and offers a broad cultural program which includes theatre, dance, concerts, exhibitions, art in public spaces, workshops, lectures, urban exploration, guided tours, events, and so on.

The programme is formed as a result of several collaborations with Leuven-based partners from the cultural and heritage sector on the one hand, and the scientific and tourist field on the other. KU[N]ST Leuven is responsible for the overall coordination and communication of these events.

The projects upheld by KU[N]ST Leuven, are aimed at a broad audience of participants and visitors from Leuven, and the wider region of Flanders, Belgium, and further afield.

Our Projects

The autumn of 2014 marked the starting point of a number of our events, with the celebration of the 500^th anniversary of the birth of Andreas Vesalius, world-famous anatomist and alumnus of the University of Leuven (KU Leuven). The body and physicality were the central themes of this edition that would bring more than 150,000 visitors to Leuven.

In 2016, it had been 500 years since the English humanist and politician Thomas More had published his acclaimed book ‘Utopia’ in Leuven. Leuven celebrated this milestone with a packed citywide festival that attracted 220,000 participants, 90,137 of whom visited the prestigious international exhibition ‘In Search of Utopia’ at M-Museum Leuven.

During the autumn of 2018, the heritage of the noble Arenberg family became the focal point of another KU[N]ST Leuven project. For more than five centuries, this family has played a pivotal role on the political, military, economic and cultural stage of Leuven and Belgium, and further afield in Europe. The Arenberg festival included a hearty opening weekend, an exhibition at Museum M which, for this occasion only, reunited the family’s art collection, and various other events; the festival attracted some 70,000 visitors.

In the autumn of 2021, the city festival BANG! unleashed a major cultural Big Bang in Leuven. The connecting thread was man's wonderment about the cosmos and its origins. And that is not a coincidence. The Big Bang theory was written in Leuven. Professor Georges Lemaître launched this revolutionary theory about the Big Bang in 1931 at the University of Leuven. And it shook the foundations of science!

In the fall of 2023, the city festival took us into the world of Dieric Bouts, undoubtedly Leuven's most important painter. We explored the traces Bouts left as an artist of the 15th century and how innovative he was in his time. We also discovered how inspiring he still is today for the world of art, culture and science.