On Friday 20 March 2026, VUB students will once again represent Brussels at Het Landjuweel, an interuniversity poetry competition bringing together young creators from the Netherlands and Flanders. During this ninth edition in Nijmegen, seven student cities will compete: Brussels, Leuven, Ghent, Antwerp, Nijmegen, Leiden and Amsterdam.
What began as gatherings of rhetoricians in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has evolved into a contemporary stage where poetry meets performance. Het Landjuweel is therefore not just about writing; it is about the full experience. Each team presents a ten-minute act in which text, performance and stage presence merge into one whole. Two prizes are awarded: a jury prize, granting the winner the honour of organising the next edition, and a public prize.
Student association LWK (VUB) has represented the university for nine consecutive years. With success: the jury prize has travelled to Brussels twice. For the students, participation goes far beyond competition. “Het Landjuweel is truly a passion project for our association,” says coordinator Lars Denoo. “Writers and performers collaborate for months to build one shared creation. Every year, we aim to bring something powerful to the stage.”
Individuality as a starting point
This year, the VUB delegation explores the theme of individuality — a subject closely aligned with the university’s values. Yet the students approach it from an unexpected angle. The central message lives not only in the words, but in the characters on stage.
Different characters each present a poem connected to a shared subtheme: the sea. From their own perspectives, they enter into dialogue with one another. How do you form an opinion? How do ideas clash? And how do you remain yourself within a group? Through this interaction, differences do not become fault lines but engines for growth. Just as people develop through encounters, the characters move each other forward — sometimes confrontational, sometimes supportive, always relational.
The choice for individuality begins with recognition. Everyone knows the feeling of being new somewhere: at school, at university, or within a group of friends. According to the creators, an individual grows stronger through the people around them. That tension between autonomy and connection forms the heart of the performance. No single voice dominates; multiple perspectives build a shared story. The passion of writers and performers carries the work on stage. “We’re especially excited to step onto the stage and show what we’ve created together,” the team says.
Fragments from the performance
(Original in Dutch)
Ik ploeg door het water als door een veld
Oneindig blijft dat water komen
Ik slik wat door met elke slag in mijn gezicht
Maar zinken? Kan ik niet, mag ik niet
Ik dacht dat de kustlijn dichter was
Maar de horizon belooft niets, buiten het oneindig water
Met je voeten op de grond,
Spoel je nooit aan
Val je nooit uit de lucht
Overkomt je niets
De zee tekent lijnen
Die soms terugtrekken
Landwaarts of zeewaarts
Je geraakt er wel
We geraken er wel
(English translation)
I plough through the water as through a field
The water keeps coming without end
With every blow to my face, I swallow some of it down
But sink? I cannot. I must not.
I thought the shoreline was closer
Yet the horizon promises nothing but endless water
With your feet on solid ground,
You never wash ashore,
Never fall from the sky,
Nothing ever happens to you
The sea draws lines
That sometimes retreat
Towards land or out to sea
You will get there
We will get there
Through their participation, the students reveal a less visible yet powerful side of student life at VUB: creativity as a space for experimentation, dialogue and collaboration. Het Landjuweel offers not only a stage, but also a meeting place where young creators exchange ideas about language, identity and living together. On 20 March, the Brussels delegation brings that search to Nijmegen — with poetry as their compass and the sea as a metaphor for everything that moves between the individual and the collective.
Stay up to date via Het Landjuweel’s Instagram account.