Machinalia is a fantastical machine that inhabits the glass-walled waiting rooms on the railway platforms of Bruges and Leuven Station. Incorporating visual elements from city legends, Che Go Eun’s mythical dragon-train, which is part of the art trail Endless Express (in the framework of the festival EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS) echoes the Romantic narrative that accompanied the first steam locomotive. Che Go Eun discusses Machinalia during a talk with Endless Express curator Caroline Dumalin and Museum M’s collection curator Ko Goubert, which focusses on references to the late medieval tale of Margaret of Louvain (Fiere Magriet).

Trained in Korean traditional painting, Che Go Eun (b. 1988, South Korea) mainly uses digital collage techniques. Digging into sources ranging from folklore to religious iconography and cyberculture, she investigates the history of places through the lens of issues that concern her today—particularly gender and how social structures across cultures have regulated love and desire. Che Go Eun lives and works between Antwerp and Seoul.

In English. Organised by EUROPALIA Arts Festival in collaboration with Museum M Leuven. Please note that a Covid Safe Ticket (CST) will be required.

The art trail Endless Express is spread over different destinations along the railway line between Ostend and Eupen. Taking the public sculpture Esprit ouvert by Tapta as a symbolic point of departure, seven artists were invited to present new works around the stations and tracks. With the train as a unifying element, they explore the networked histories embedded in this landscape and entangled with this line. With new works by Che Go Eun, Inas Halabi, Flaka Haliti, Chloé Malcotti, Sophie Nys, Marina Pinsky and Laure Prouvost.

The Ostend-Eupen railway line is the longest in Belgium, traversing its three official language regions in about three hours—from the royal seaside resort in the west to the industrial river valley in the east, with the capital of Brussels in the centre. The train—introduced shortly after Belgium was founded in 1830—speaks in a broader way of industrialisation, the promise of progress, and how these forces have transformed this country.

The artists included in this exhibition are all based in Belgium or its neighbouring countries. Some imagine the train as a mythical creature re-enchanting the world, others question the notion of thinking in a straight line, as well as labour and its rhythms, or playfully disrupt the clockwork time that helped shape the society of speed we live in today.

Curator: Caroline Dumalin