Practical
Wednesday, 20 May, 2026
- 18:00 until 20:00
Pilar
Triomflaan, VUB (Entrance 6)
1050 Brussels
Triomflaan, VUB (Entrance 6)
1050 Brussels
Free participation but registration mandatory
The Messy Sessie ateliers at Pilar are low-key workshops where we draw, stitch, doodle, cut, glue, and make a bit of a mess together. A nice way to hang out, meet people, and try things out. Each session can be something different: experimental drawing, upcycling clothes, reading circles, model drawing… anything goes.
On May 20, we’re joined by artist Annelotte Lammertse for a hands-on session with dye plants: plants traditionally used to make natural dyes. Together, we’ll extract pigments from plants and dye textiles with natural dyes. We’ll prepare a natural pigment and dye bath on site, and you’ll dip your fabric in natural plant pigments to build up color. Fabrics will be present, but you can bring a piece of fabric (or a garment) you’d like to dye. Natural fibres like wool, or silk work best.
Annelotte is also one of the artists in The Foragers exhibition at Pilar. Feel free to visit the exhibition before the session, to step into the wider context of her practice.
Programme
14:00-20:00: The exhibition is open.
18:00-20:00: Messy Sessie with Annelotte Lammertse
Registration
Free participation, but registration mandatory. Registrations open at the end of April.
Bio
Annelotte Lammertse is a Brussels-based visual artist and researcher. Through weaving, natural dyeing, film, photography, performance, and printmaking, she focuses on the multilayered relationships and connections that are made in our direct natural surroundings, taking flora and other non-human organisms as guides and storytellers. She responds to the ways we constantly try to control, categorise, and capture the ecologies around us. In these works, different forms of collaboration, knowledge production, and precarity are researched.
Part of The Foragers
The Foragers: Engagements Beyond The Human is an interdisciplinary art and science project that reimagines foraging (the gathering of edible or useful materials in one’s immediate surroundings) as a creative and ecological practice. Between October 2025 and December 2027, a series of activities invites you to rediscover your connection with the environment, not only in nature but also in unexpected places across the city and its edges.
The series is co-curated by artistic researcher Gosie Vervloessem, historian Benoît Henriet (VUB) and VUB Crosstalks, and supported by ERC FORAGENCY and the Chair Casterman-Hamers: History and Philosophy of Sciences. This exhibition is organised in collaboration with Pilar.
The world needs you
This initiative is part of VUB's public programme, a programme for everyone who believes that scientific knowledge, critical thinking and dialogue are an important first step to create impact in the world.
As an Urban Engaged University, VUB aims to be a driver of change in the world. With our academic edcuational programmes and innovative research, we contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations and to making a difference locally and globally.