Ghent’s museums present a crazy, challenging or relaxing programme with interactive activities, performances, exhibitions and even ‘Hunger Games’. Immerse yourself in AI, test your metal skills, have your future predicted or challenge your friends on the Sega Dreamcast. Will you discover the programme with us?
Museum nights are known at home and abroad as the night when museums present an extremely atmospheric programme full of surprising extras. Lovers of heritage, design and art can enjoy the most beautiful collections and exhibitions offered by the museums until long after normal opening hours. Museum Night Ghent has been organised since 2007, is always free and takes place on the first Thursday of December. This year, the event takes place on 7 December 2023. Next year, it will take place on 5 December 2024.
Unable to join us on 7 December? But does a late-night visit sound like something you’d enjoy? Then you should add the Late Thursdays to your calendar. Every first Thursday of the month, a few Ghent museums are open until 10 p.m. On these nights, you can also enjoy art and heritage in a special atmosphere and discover the best bedtime stories. The next editions will take place on 4 January, 1 February, 7 March and 4 April 2024. You do have to pay for these late-night visits. The (Dutch) programme can be found elsewhere on this website.
The House of Alijn goes back to the nineties! Visit the exhibition 90s and challenge each other on the PS1, Sega Dreamcast or Nintendo 64. Come dance to your favourite 90s hits in the courtyard with DJ Latomski and DJ Patrick. Dress code? Buffalo shoes, flannel shirts or oversized track suits.
Experience, or rather, survive Museum Night with the STAM Hunger Games in the exhibition The story of Ghent. Hop your way through Ghent specialties, sing from the top of your lungs, play a ruthless game of “graangraaien”, make it spicy or reach the finish line of our obstacle course Deliver goe in one piece. Have you tried it all? Don’t forget your food photo and eat some chips to regain some energy.
Welcome to our winter market: a cosy meeting place where you can drink as much mulled wine as you wish, warm up by the fire and listen to some music. Start the winter off right, discover local talent in our courtyard and enjoy some wintery comfort food. In short, discover Guislain in all its glory. Of course, you can visit our exhibition Untitled free of charge. That would be the logical thing to do, but it’s not mandatory. Tschüss!
Museum Night at GUM & Botanical Garden will be an unconventional edition yet again. A night of science, doubt & art. The MuST (Museum Student Team) infiltrates in the museum with ‘questionable’ interventions and in the Botanical Garden’s greenhouses, you can immerse yourself in a musical, tropical night full of palm trees and southern frogs! We can’t guarantee you won’t end up among skeletons or preserved animals. Are you thirsty? The Doubt Bar serves … Right, what does the Doubt Bar actually serve?
From 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., we transform the Museum of Industry into a fun factory for our youngest visitors! The brand new exhibition FERRO NON FERRO is all about metal, so you can expect a banging and shiny evening! Be surprised by the interactive music robot, catch a magnetic fish, get creative with metal in the Tinker Studio or challenge your parents to a game of strength. Will you become the new strongman after John Massis?
Presses are running at full speed, surprising you with unique cards and posters. Weaving machines are rattling like never before. There is stitching, painting and spinning, and the brand new exhibition FERRO NON FERRO will show you the wondrous world of metal. Test your metal skills or admire those of the smith in the museum garden. Print your own T-shirt with great metal quotes and be surprised by a special metal band. CirQ will bring a metal detector, because where is metal hidden in the average visitor?
In our road exhibition, you join photographer and storyteller Jelle Vermeersch on his tractor for a trip through the countryside. Discover the stories of Countryfolk! During Museum Night, these countryfolk will come alive and treat you to music and performances. Or what about your own portrait as a countryman/countrywoman?
Can you feel Sint-Pietersplein square thundering? Dinosaurs have been spotted in The World of Kina! Come visit the brand new exhibition Dinorama and test your dinosaur knowledge in the Wheel of Fortune. Soothsayer La Esterella will read your dino cards and predict your future. You can also come dance with us, choose a dinosaur tattoo, take some photos in the photobooth or warm up with a bowl of soup.
Kunsthal Gent invites klankencollectief a-e-i-o-u for a special performance. During their improvising performance, they explore the tension between musical and visual performative elements, focusing on the search for collective value, friendship and trust.
The fine arts are embracing technology: come and see! The possibilities with AI are central to our Museum Night activities: come chat to two paintings, immerse yourself in the installations created by students from LUCA School of Arts or discover exclusively how Schoonvolk continues last year’s fantastic party.
While you explore the new exhibitions of Jan Van Imschoot, Karlo Kacharava and Joseph Willaert’s Brievenproject, The Constant Now interrupts with interventions and performances. And prepare your eardrums, they will vibrate on psychedelic music, experimental drone doom and space ambient of ZAÄAR.
© Michiel Devijver
© Martin Corlazzoli
© Museum Dr Guislain
© Karin Borghouts
© Martin Corlazzoli
© Corlazzzoli
© Historische Huizen Gent
© Wereld van Kina
© Michiel De Cleene
© Martin Corlazzoli
© S.M.A.K.