Turning to the future
In this anniversary year, the international house of literature Passa Porta is also turning to tomorrow as it looks for a new director to give shape to its future. Director Ilke Froyen and deputy director Adrienne Nizet are both passing on the torch after nine years.
Together with initiator and pioneer Paul Buekenhout, among others, Ilke Froyen was involved from the start in 2004 in the international house of literature. She is now leaving Passa Porta to become the new director of Cultuurconnect, a platform committed to the digital innovation of the Flemish cultural sector.
Ilke succeeded Sigrid Bousset as director and led Passa Porta for nine years along with deputy director Adrienne Nizet, who has just joined The Shift, the Belgian sustainability community.
Astrid Van Impe, the former director of Théâtre Le 140, succeeds Adrienne Nizet and, as operations director, will coordinate the Passa Porta Festival and the structural operations of the house of literature, besides ensuring links with the French-language literary field.
To succeed Ilke Froyen, the board is looking for a new director to further animate the project and, together with Astrid and the Passa Porta team, steer the house of literature into the future.
Chairpersons Hugo De Greef and Laurence Jenard thank Ilke and Adrienne for the passion with which they each fulfilled their mission. They leave behind a financially healthy organization. Together, they merged two separate non-profit organizations into a single artistic project while putting together a multilingual team. They succeeded in tailoring the project to Brussels and making the house known across Europe, and in strengthening ties with the Flemish and French-speaking communities. In a rapidly changing city and world, Ilke, Adrienne and the Passa Porta team chose to open wide the doors of the house of literature. Quite literally by turning the office space on the first and second floors of Rue Dansaertstraat 46 into a co-writing space for makers and an incubator for start-up initiatives. Figuratively by continuing to give space to nuanced but often critical writers from around the world and by highlighting new voices that can help to us better grasp tomorrow’s world.
Are you the person to build on this as director? Then you will find the job description here!