Ostend was a real surprise. Its glory days as one of the foremost northern European resorts may be long gone, but it’s friendly and likeable, and has a lot going for it. Even if we hadn’t fallen for its faded charms, the fact that it is a veritable open-air gallery of street art would have endeared it to me. In 2016, Ostend inaugurated a festival known as The Crystal Ship, and every year since local and international street artists have been invited to add their work to the town.
Over the last seven years, more than 200 pieces of street art have been commissioned. It was as unexpected as it was delightful. The city has developed a street art app that guides you around three separate routes to discover the various works. You find yourself in parts of Ostend that you’d be fairly unlikely to see otherwise, along parts of the docks and into suburban streets west of the centre, as well as in the centre itself.
They don’t make it easy though. I walked two routes – Belle Epoque and Oosteroever – and ended up walking over 20 km in total. It only occured to me later that a bike might have been a more sensible form of transport. It was definitely an adventure, and the area of Ostend that is known as Petit Paris (it looks little like the real Paris) was a revelation, with a healthy number of beautiful late 19th and early 20th century villas.
Since its inception, The Crystal Ship has established itself as one of the world’s major street art festivals, with new artists coming every April to add to the growing back catalogue of works. A couple of the works have seen better days, but given the storms and salt air, most look pretty good. The curator of the event, Bjørn Van Poucke, is also involved with All About Things, a cultural group responsible for street art projects across Belgium.
Wandering around the streets discovering large artworks on suburban houses, schools and warehouses reminded me of street art in Berlin. It was impressive. I walked the Belle Epoque route first before crossing over the harbour to walk the Oosteroever route. The artwork was much more spread out, but the final part of the route was along the harbour where what remains of the fishing fleet is moored. It was fascinating.
The name The Crystal Ship seems to be taken from a Doors song of the same name, which was the B-side of the Light My Fire single. The song was an ode to Jim Morrison’s breakup with a girlfriend, and some of the street art conjures the same dreamlike quality of the song. Some claim that Morrison’s lyrics were inspired by English poet, William Blake, and his poem The Crystal Cabinet.
I studied Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience collection of poems at school. As well as being one of the great poets in the English language, Blake illustrated his own manuscripts. His unique style made him one of the most extraordinary and original visual artists of his time. I’m sure it’s not coincidence that The Crystal Ship can trace an artistic link back to one of the most visionary artists of the 18th and 19th centuries.
A 19th century biography of Blake commented on the fact that, in his own lifetime, Blake was not a popular poet or artist. The author, Alexander Gilchrist, said that Blake wrote and drew for “children and angels”. That seems a suitable epitaph for Ostend’s street art as well.
Simply wonderful. I’ll never forget you introduced me to street art.
Dank je wel Paul
There are some fabulous works there! Seems like a very good reason for a trip to Ostend, bad modern architecture or not.
Ostend was a revelation. I’d been avoiding it because of its well deserved reputation for ugliness, but it’s rather lovely.