Snow white. That is what Ghent’s iconic Graffiti Street looked like for a while today. Together with Ghent street artists, the GUM (Ghent University Museum) painted this narrow street white as a tribute to the blank page.
With the whitewashed Graffiti Street, the new science museum wants to invite everyone to look at the blank page as a starting point for new ideas, a place to rethink and challenge ideas and maybe even to throw them away afterwards.
‘Sometimes you have to start with a blank sheet to come up with new insights. Welcome inside the head of the scientist.’ With that message, Ghent University and the GUM (Ghent University Museum) simultaneously published an empty book and coloured their social media accounts white.
Science is a journey of trial and error, doubt and imagination. The cliché of the brilliant professor or the lone genius? That is nothing but a myth.
“Science is fragile and that is what makes it so beautiful. In our new museum, you can track the turbulent journey of the scientist. He or she starts with a blank page and finds an answer through trial and error - or not,” says Marjan Doom, director of the GUM. “We hope that new ideas and images will quickly find a place in our blank pages and in the Graffiti Street. They, in turn, are the beginning of a new story.”
Starting from October 3rd, the GUM is finally opening its doors. Come by for a visit and be the first to discover all the objects.
Read also
Students take over GUM during Museum Night
The Ghent University Museum has a group of engaged students from different study programmes who volunteer to help with the museum's operations. We spoke to Gabriella, Maxime and Evelyne about how they support the GUM and Museum Night.
"Tinkering with crazy solutions for complex societal problems, without complex jargon"
“Knowledge is important. But we tend to get hung up in that part of the process sometimes,” says researcher Bas Baccarne (research group imec-MICT-Ghent University, in De Krook). He prefers it when thinking also leads to doing. Preferably together with a whole bunch of other stakeholders. And, if it’s up to him, in the stimulating environment of ‘Comon’.
Meet the hills of Ghent
From the Sint-Kwintensberg over the Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat to the Plateau: we take you over some of the most famous (and trickiest) slopes around Ghent University campuses.
Aurèle supports fund for Botanical Garden: a tribute to his mother
After his mother passed away, Aurèle De Vos decided to commemorate his mother by establishing a fund and donating to the Botanical Garden. Its purpose is to help the Botanical Garden protect rare and endangered plants.
