Guides and facilitators

An Hernalsteen studied translation and art, writing her dissertation on Ghent’s Westerbegraafplaats. She enjoys sharing her love of art and culture through the tours and lectures she gives in museums in Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp and Brussels.

An adores the MSK’s entire collection, from the early anonymous masters to the ‘fabulous colour fireworks’ of Jules Schmalzigaug. She’s also endlessly fascinated by the work of Leon Spilliaert.

Ann Van Eenaeme studied law and art and trained as a museum guide, and she worked for many years as a lawyer in the financial sector. She likes variation and enjoys giving tours through both the temporary and permanent collections. She prefers to consider works of art from various perspectives during tours, and she encourages people to look and experience things for themselves as much as possible.

Her two favourite paintings in the MSK are The Master Painter by Jan Frans Verhas and Christ Carrying the Cross by Jheronimus Bosch. Christ Carrying the Cross is a work that really tells a story in terms of its content, its painting technique and restoration, and the discussion that has arisen as to who painted it.

Annelies Steen studied art, sculpture and goldsmithing. She enjoys giving tours for children, making each one a highly interactive experience that challenges children creatively.

With roots in Oostend, Annelies is a major fan of the etchings by James Ensor in the MSK’s collection. This eccentric, multi-faceted artist has fascinated her since a very young age.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Annemie Stautemas studied art history and worked in textiles for a long time. Now she teaches Dutch and is a children’s guide.

Annemie especially enjoys exploring social themes, and likes to interact with her groups. Her favourite work is The Begonias, by Jenny Montigny. For her, it exudes calm and gentleness, and enables her to relax and escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Ben Ghyselinck studied communication and now works as a financial officer and coordinator in youth services. He gives LGBTQ+ tours in the MSK. Starting from the stories behind the works, and the artists themselves, Ben reveals the rich diversity that has always been present in society, but that has often remained hidden.

His favourite work is Portrait of the Physician Ludwig Adler, by Oskar Kokoschka.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Celesta Daniëls studied photography and graphic arts, then trained to be a teacher. After arriving at the MSK as an intern, she never left. She sees the MSK ateliers as fertile ground for new art and fantastic experiments. Using clay, paint, brushes, tape, cardboard, ink and other materials, Celesta helps children and young people create their own stories to go with the beautiful works in the museum.

She also teaches part-time in Brussels, and has worked with the Ghent Education Centre on art education for children in community schools.

Christine Demeunynk studied art history and musicology, and is also a qualified guide. She joined the MSK in 2007 to give tours through the legendary British Vision exhibition. As a guide, her aim is to ensure people have a meaningful experience in the museum, and with this in mind she prefers ‘slow looking’, or taking the time to immerse yourself in art by looking at only a few things at a time.

Christine has not just one but three favourite works at the MSK: The Madonna of the Carnation, from the workshop of Rogier Van der Weyden, The Flagellation of Christ by Rubens and Portrait of the Physician Ludwig Adler by Oskar Kokoschka.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Claudine De Mulder studied history and is also a qualified guide. After working for a few years in Munich, she began teaching history, aesthetics, French and German in Ghent. She also works as a city guide. Claudine enjoys giving tours for exhibitions on a specific theme, period or artist, and particularly enjoyed the Van Eyck and Rombouts exhibitions. 

Her favourite works are Saint Jerome by Jheronimus Bosch, The Lecture by Emile Verhaeren by Théo Van Rysselberghe and The Augustijnenrei in Bruges in the Morning van Erich Heckel, but if should could take just one work home with her, it would be Theodoor Rombouts’ Lute Player.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Dirk Heyndrickx studied pedagogy and trained as a primary school teacher. After working as a teacher and principal in several schools in the Ghent region, he is now enjoying his retirement. A few years ago, after returning from a major trip around the world, he trained as a guide.

Dirk believes that a tour should be a dynamic interaction between the guide and the group, and enjoys using didactic aids such as music. His aim is to make art accessible, especially for children in difficult circumstances.

His favourite works in the MSK are Young Girl on a Red Carpet by Felice Casorati en Portrait of Marguerite Van Mons by Théo Van Rysselberghe.

Dominique Dumon studied art history and has worked in education for a long time. She likes to create tailor-made tours based on specific themes, such as landscapes or portraiture. For Dominique, it’s important to look at the context of a work of art together with visitors.

Schoolmates by James Guthrie and Meagre Repast by Master of the Blue Jeans are two of her favourites, although she actually believes that every work deserves to be a favourite.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Helen Buys studied history, art and the management and conservation of contemporary art. Being a guide is a great passion of hers. Helen likes variety, beauty, and both old and newer art.

In her tours, she aims to inspire enthusiasm and even passion about the works in the MSK collections. Her favourite work is Christ Carrying the Cross Jheronimus Bosch: “a lot of crazy little people all jumbled together, perhaps too many,” she says.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Hildegarde Meganck studied art history and trained to be a museum guide. Previously, she taught history and art history to young people in preparation for their national exams.

Hildegard most enjoys encouraging visitors to look for themselves, and make their own discoveries. She herself discovers something new every time she visits the MSK. One of her favourite works is Hospitality to Strangers by Gustave van de Woestyne.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Jo Vandevelde studied civil engineering and business management, working for years as an international financial director. He later studied art, and began his career as a museum guide in the MSK’s British Vision exhibition.

Jo enjoys giving tours for students and adults, with an emphasis on connections between various movements, subjects and individual artists. One of his favourite departments is Northern Netherlandic artists, and he enjoys looking at hidden beauties such as Weillem Claesz. Heda’s still life breakfasts.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Karen Van Gulik studied interior architecture and trained as a teacher. In the MSK, she leads a range of workshops for children and young people aged 7 to 18. With so much inspiration all around, there are plenty of themes to discover. She also teaches at the academy and sets out art routes for children in community school neighbourhoods for the Ghent Education Centre.

Her favourite work in the museum is the building itself, which is, as she puts it, “everything in one”.

Kathy De Vos took multi-lingual secretarial training and studied to be a city guide, ceramic artist and herbalist. She has also worked as an insurance and investment adviser. For Kathy, being a guide is an extension of a previous hobby: she started at Gravensteen some years ago and is now a guide at several locations.

She gives tours on various themes at the MSK, encouraging visitors to think actively for themselves and discover the logic in things. As a fan of Jheronimus Bosch she loves Christ Carrying the Cross, not just because she thinks it’s so beautiful, but mainly because there is so much to say about it.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Marianne Devogele studied physical education, medicine, and the management and conservation of contemporary art, and she is a qualified museum guide. She has also worked as a teacher and a doctor, and she founded two bookshops.

She enjoys working in the MSK’s temporary exhibitions and takes a didactic approach to being a guide. During a tour, she likes to take inspiration from what is happening in the moment, for example by looking at the frieze around the building.

Martine Audenaert studied nursing and trained as a museum guide, and she has taken several courses about the Middle Ages and modern era at Ghent University. She used to work as an operating theatre scrub nurse at Ghent University Hospital.

Martine has been a guide at the MSK since 1999, and one of her main passions is the Ghent Altarpiece, and she could tell you virtually anything you might want to know about its restoration. Subjects of Martine’s tours include how to identify saints according to their iconography and how to decipher the long-lost language of symbolism in the works of the Old Masters.

Her favourite work of art is The Man of Sorrows, by Maarten van Heemskerck, as she loves its many layers of symbolism.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Miguel De Clercq studied Germanic languages, Dutch and English. He teaches adult students training to be guides and tour leaders in an adult education centre in Ghent, and is the coordinator of training programmes for guides and tour leaders as well as a conservationist for heritage and an art handler. He has also worked as a city guide.

After attending a trial version of the LGTBQ+ theme tour, he became a guide himself. His favourite works are Tree in the Sun and The Kingfishers by Emile Claus.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Paul Sioncke worked as a commercial economist for 20 years before deciding to make time for his neglected passions - art, history and the city of Ghent - and training to be a guide.

In his interactive tours, he always tries to find connections between things and to awaken insights. He loves the period spanning the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, in which you can see the dynamics in the art world unfolding in parallel with rapid urban and societal developments. One of his favourite works is Frits Van den Berghe’s The Idiot by the Pond.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Pieter Duysburgh studied sociology and journalism, and is now rounding off his training as a guide. Pieter is part of the MSK Artshizzle team, which works on creative teambuilding sessions in the museum. He is also a guide for the LGTBQ+ tour, and enjoys approaching works in the collection from this perspective. Pieter does his best to get people to really look at the works and make up their own minds about them.

His own favourites change from week to week, but just now he adores Jenny Montigny’s painting The Begonias. Every time he looks at it, he wants to pick up a watering can and water the entire blooming border.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Saskia Benoit studied art and works in the sales department of a company that produces doors. In the MSK, she is a guide and workshop leader.

During her tours she helps people make discoveries and find wonders. Saskia is also an inspired storyteller who enjoys both mythology and quintessentially human stories from real life. Her favourite work of art is the delicate Psyche, by Paul De Vigne, which she feels is a lovely unity of mythology, sculpture, craftsmanship and beauty.

Saskia De Keyser studied Germanic languages and translation and interpreting. She now works as a translator, and for six years was a programmer for theBrussels Queer Film Festival Pink Screens.

Saskia gives the LGBTQ+ tour based on her love for both the community and art. During her tours, she enjoys placing an extra emphasis on the role and representation of women artists and women in the arts in general. The Nymph Salmacis and Hermaphroditus by François-Joseph Navez is her favourite work in the LGBTQ+ tour.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Sofie Steen studied English, Dutch and Swedish as well as cultural management. In her work as a guide, a teacher of Dutch as a second language and an interpreter, people are always central.

During her tours she does her best to excite people’s sense of fantasy, and there’s always room for a little silliness. She enjoys taking young and older children on a voyage of discovery in the MSK, with Christ Carrying the Cross by Jheronimus Bosch as the icing on the cake.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Valerie De Witte studied history and comparative modern literature. She has worked as an editor and critic, and these days combines being a freelance guide with copywriting and tutoring.

Her final paper for her training as a guide revolved around the colour blue, and this was the start of her work at the MSK. She enjoys making tours interactive, and has developed theme tours revolving around classical mythology and the topics of death and grief. Slow art is Valerie’s cup of tea.

Her favourite work is Seated woman at the Window, which also happens to be by one of her favourite painters, Rik Wouters. The woman who slips into a daydream while she reads reminds her of herself.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Zoë Croegaert studied drama and worked as an actor in youth theatre for some years. She like to focus on stories during her tours, since she believes that art really comes to life when she encourages visitors to imagine their own stories behind the works.

One of her favourite works is Christ Carrying the Cross, with its dramatic, rowdy figures and unusual composition, which she finds so appealing. As she says, “It’s a masterpiece”.

Eric Reynaerts studied to be a drawing teacher, then worked for years in secondary-level art education. He has been a guide at the MSK since he retired, but also still creates and exhibits his drawings.

As a guide Eric most enjoys the museum’s temporary exhibitions, but he also regularly turns to the permanent collection to find new insights. Not surprisingly given his career history, Eric likes to give tours for secondary school students, and he also guides visually impaired visitors.

Vanity Piece by Hendrick Andriessen is one of his favourite works in the collection, and its themes turn up in his own work.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Louise van de Werve studied art history and the conservation and restoration of books and paper. She later trained as a museum guide.

Louise enjoys giving tours that focus on gardens and nature, faces (expressions and questions of beauty and ugliness), representations of everyday objects, still lifes and painters from the Leie region. In her tours, she puts an emphasis on learning together about how to look at art, and on the creative powers of artists.

Her favourite works are Simon Bening’s Virgin and Child, Théo Van Rysselberghe’s portrait of Marguerite Van Mons and Landscape with Crab Fishermen by Roelant Savery.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Petja Gekiere studied art and then immediately became a guide at the MSK. She is also a lector in visual imagery at Odissee school of applied sciences.

In recent years she has guided visitors through countless temporary exhibitions, from Paris-Bruxelles to Van Eyck, as well as the permanent collection. With a focus on painting in particular, Petja enjoys minutely dissecting a work with a group of adults or children, using dialogue to examine every detail and finding links between works of art from different periods.

Her favourite work is Women Washing Clothes at Etretat, in which the women and their work somehow also seem to be part of the movement of the clouds and the sounds of the sea.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Sylvie Brems studied communications and worked in marketing and communication for many years. She trained to be a guide in 2017, and enjoys sharing her passion for art, culture and history with a range of different groups and in Dutch, French and English. She like to exchange ideas with each group, with a focus on their specific interests.

The Master Painter by Jan Frans Verhas, The Skaters by Emile Claus and Harbour, Opus 2 by Victor Servranckx are among her favourite works in the museum.

Photo: Noé Lagaert

Wim Provoost studied history and comparative religions and has a deep interest in art and art history. In his day-to-day life he is the director of Sint-Lievenscollege Business, and in his free time he gives tours in the MSK for people with Dutch as a second language and for newcomers to Belgium who do not speak Dutch or French. Tours focus on traditions surrounding major life events, and he finds that talking about art together is an ideal way to remove obstacles between people.

He currently gives LGBTQ+ tours, during which he particularly enjoys talking about the less well-known stories behind familiar works of art. Wim likes to engage visitors in conversations about art and to tell stories in an interactive way.

If he could sneak one work out of the museum and into his own home, it would be Saint Jerome by Jheronimus Bosch, which is both dramatic and full of life, with an enjoyably satirical undertone.

Mieke Vyncke studied painting and trained as a museum guide. For years she has combined her work as a history teacher with giving tours en various museums in Ghent.

Her countless cultural journeys and excursions and the many lectures she has attended provide plenty of inspiration for her tours. She likes working in the temporary exhibitions, or on the theme of gods and mythology. Mieke enjoys an interactive approach, and gives tours in English and French.

Her favourite work in the collection is Saint Jerome by Jheronimus Bosch.

After her master's degree in Art History, Sanne De Cooman studied graphic design. She prefers to share art, imagination and creativity with the youngest possible audience in a relaxed atmosphere. Sanne is therefore most in her element when she is allowed to supervise a birthday party at the MSK. 'De Sterrenvisser' by Frits Van den Berghe is one of her favourite works. She likes how the abstract representation leaves room for fantasy and turns small children into great storytellers.

Omar Pluymers studied Painting and Free Visual Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. His interests in art, art history and art philosophy have recently led him to give guided tours in both the MSK and SMAK. For his guided tours, he likes to work on a tailor-made basis, starting from dialogue and conversation and especially listening to the needs of the listener. One of his favourite works is Frits Van den Berghe's The Star Fisherman.

Sybren Janssens studied Autonomous Design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. He himself is active as a visual artist, creating both large and small installations and scenographic works.

Through his fascination with alternative and surreal universes, he steps into the frames of paintings with you. He sees the museum as a great time travel where you suddenly find yourself in the moulin rouge of 1899, or along in the sea where the muses triumph.