In May the new Het Bos (The Forest) opened in Antwerp. It is the following up from the notorious Scheld’apen squat which was open for 15 years. On the place where Scheld’apen is, a new real estate area has to rise. Like in almost all cities the money and the people who owns it are getting overhand and smother all ‘alternative’ spaces and initiatives which is a big shame. I was in Amsterdam the other day, there that was going on for more than 10 years and almost all nice spaces vanished. A few like the great OCCII and OT301 manage to survive.

Anyway the people from Scheld’apen were offered a new place more to the center of town and a new place it is. Huge and still a working pit when it was opened, but that’s the Scheld’apen spirit. Some people in Antwerp were complaining that the new place doesn’t have the ‘Scheld’apen spirit’ anymore and they refuse to visit the new place. Those people complain a lot about Antwerp anyway, that nothing is happening and shit, but at all the nice places i go in Antwerp i never see them of course. I think it is the great strength of Antwerp that places come and go and that there is a great bunch of people organizing concerts, strart up new (sometimes illegal) places and keep the spirit going, that’s the reason i love Antwerp. So in May i went to Het Bos to see what is going on and i must say i more or less like it. Great spaces and still the pretty bad organization with non-communication like the past. So i guess there hasn’t change much, some new people came to organize, some others left. I hope the new people in power at the city hall keep continuing this great place, i’m a bit afraid for it, because they are not really known for their ‘cultural feeling’

Here’s a small selection of the concerts and the nice Otark breakfast club.

info: http://www.hetbos.be