Horst Arts and Music has been at the forefront of showcasing innovative art and uplifting culture for 11 years now. Its 2025 programming is a testament to Horst’s dedication to cutting-edge artists, bringing together a group of musicians and artists for this year's demonstration of true creativity. The organization holds the diversity of club culture in the highest esteem, regarding it as the backbone of the artistic community. The Horst Arts and Music Festival marks the summer-long displays from artists invited to create semi-permanent installations and demonstrations that push the boundaries of creative expression. 

This year's arts programming features commissions from architects Leopold Banchini x Giona Bierens de Haan x DVS1, Atelier Fanelsa, Jean-Benoît Vétillard, and Alter, choreographers and visual artists Eddie Peake, Marilyn Minter, Joshua Serafin, and Kenza Taleb Vandeput. This year's summer exhibition is titled ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’, which is inspired by Sara Teasdale's 1918 poem of the same name. The exhibition will explore resilience and adaptation in a changing world. 

During the festival, there will be three different stages occupied by music and performance. Eddie Peake choreographed ‘The Pervert’, which is an exploration of voyeurism. The piece features nude dancers painted in gold and is on a 2025 tour, performing in cities across Europe. This is just a fraction of the experimental art, music, and performance featured throughout the festival. With a musical lineup that is dance music-focused, the sound is enough to carry festival goers throughout the whole weekend. 

Techno veterans DVS1 and DJ Stingray 313 are featured on the lineup, and Amor Satyr & Sui Mata will bring their fast-paced grooves to the Horst stage. The lineup's greatest strength is its dedication to electronic music tastemakers and widely revered pioneers of modern experimental music. It’s easy to get lost in the glamour of club and festival culture today, so when it comes to celebrating the roots of music and culture, Horst opens the door for festival goers to breathe in the rhythm and creativity. We spoke with founders Simon Nowak and Jochem Daelman to get some more insight into the operation.

You’ve made your dedication to club culture very clear, and we can see it reflected in the lineups you’ve put out. What is your personal connection to club culture, and how did that relate to the creation of this event? 

Simon Nowak: When we started the festival, it was a period when clubbing was pretty much 24/7 on our minds. Looking forward to the weekend again. Spending time in pretty much every Belgian club, often jumping on trains to travel between Brussel, Ghent, Leuven, Antwerp to hit different clubs and IYKYN parties. Being based in Brussels, we were very central in Europe. So as soon as we got a car or some more money, we started to travel to Berlin, Amsterdam, London and immerse ourselves in those revered club scenes. 

In that period, festivals, especially in Belgium, were still very much rock & pop focussed. There were of course big electronic acts playing on some festival stages, but the underground club culture and music that we discovered all over Europe did not find it’s way (yet) to festivals. 

Hence the idea by starting our own party in summer which was at that time still ‘of-season’ for clubs. By running our own party we could book the dj’s we’d love to see play and by a merging architecture with stage designs we could actually try to recreate more of a club setting where artists are much closer to the audience which we felt was more fitting then putting them on a huge stage, often 5 to 10 meters away from the dancers.

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What you guys are doing with Studio Onkruid is really interesting, especially your work with Stelplaats. Why is it important for you guys to pull the youth into these spaces? What did working on that project mean to you? 

Jochem Daelman: The question really touches on our roots on many levels. Horst was born in Leuven, the same city where Stelplaats is located. The events we organized before Horst even existed were partly born out of a frustration: there was far too little attention and respect for youth culture in our city. We felt unappreciated by local policy and overlooked by the cultural establishment. So for us, it was only natural to start organizing events that revolved around youth culture. From the beginning, we saw this as something broader than just music. We looked at art, photography, slam poetry, …

But it wasn’t only about presenting youth culture—it was also about supporting young people, giving them space, letting them experiment. In a way that they could grow, discover, and create beautiful things.

To be clear: we haven’t been involved in the day-to-day operations of Stelplaats for a few years now. Our main role was in helping launch it, after which a talented team took the reins and built it into what it is today. That said, the connection between Horst and Stelplaats remains strong. Many young people flow between the two organisations. We’re fertile ground for each other, and we’re proud of that.

Believing in young people, offering them space, connecting them with each other and with inspiring artists, allowing them to experiment and take ownership—that’s what both Horst and Stelplaats aim to do, each in their own way.

When we were younger, there were a few key people and places that gave us the opportunities we needed. Horst grew from those chances and that support. We see it as our responsibility to give that back to the next generations.

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Your website mentions that Asiat Park, where Horst is held, is a military base reimagined as an “urban district”. What physical steps are taken in order to repurpose these spaces into community based, artistically driven experiences? 

Jochem: That’s right. A lot has happened already, but there’s still an incredible amount of work ahead. The city of Vilvoorde purchased the site from the Ministry of Defense in 2018. Horst held its first festival there in 2019, and we immediately fell in love with the location. Around that time, a strong relationship with the city began to develop. They were looking for a partner to temporarily manage and activate the site for a ten-year period—a kind of urban experiment to prepare the grounds for its long-term future.

Vilvoorde is a city facing many challenges, with limited financial means and a small administrative body. They needed someone who could take on a number of responsibilities, and that became us.

The site includes around 12,000 square meters of built space, and today, approximately 95% of that is rented out. It’s a mix of recreational functions (like a bouldering hall, fitness space, skatepark), social organisations, creative studios, a bar and restaurant. The public outdoor space has also undergone major transformations—becoming greener and more inviting. Each year, through Horst, we aim to add new layers to the site. For the festival and our annual Expo, we commission new stages, pavilions, and artworks that transform the park into a contemporary open-air museum.

One tangible example is the RING stage/pavilion designed by Italian architecture studio Piovenefabi. They were invited to build a stage for a specific zone, but during a site visit, they became fascinated by a more run-down area elsewhere. Instead of constructing something entirely new, they dismantled a large existing metal structure and repurposed it entirely. The result was the RING—a unique steel stage that, after the festival, was transformed into a neighborhood playground with a racetrack, basketball court, swings, and more. It’s a great illustration of our approach: we aim to create spaces that outlive the festival and serve a broader community.

Ultimately, we envision Asiat Park as a green, creative, and distinct public space, a place where people from all walks of life can feel at home.

How has your relationship with each other grown since creating the festival? How do your diverse professional backgrounds complement each other when you come together to curate each year's festival?

Jochem: There’s a core group of us who’ve been involved since the very first edition—people who have now been working together for over 11 years. For about half that time, it was a voluntary effort, and much less intense than it is today. As the project gradually became more professional, the nature of our collaboration evolved, and that naturally impacted our personal relationships as well.

The fact that we’re still working together after all these years is a sign of how complementary we are. Horst is a uniquely broad and multidisciplinary project. It brings together many different fields—spatial design, artistic curation, event production—but also requires a solid operational and business backbone. It’s not just about ideas or aesthetics; it’s also about execution and sustainability. The journey we’ve been on hasn’t always been easy, but we’ve managed to grow through it and find our individual roles within the collective.

Of course, we’ve had our share of disagreements over the past 11 years. But one thing that defines us as a team is our ability to come back to the table and keep talking. Conflict isn’t always comfortable, but friction sharpens things—it brings clarity and depth. And without a doubt, that’s pushed us forward.