Huskrooms

Walking Over In Your Oldest Shoes

Meeting Ancestors Seabottomflowers 

Knowing What’s From Whom 

Ripping Veils in Splendid Shreds of Doom 

Under Braided Branches Regaining Power

For Old Times’ Sake Cutting Cordless Compounds loose 

– Poem by Henny Baeken

Huskrooms is a traveling installation activated through performances and unfolding organically via interactions with its surroundings and participants. Comprising carefully collected and reworked textiles, the artwork interweaves relationally—like a living organism—with the space, people, weather, textures, and materials of its temporary location.

For Open Studios, Lili Vanderstraeten and Kito Kotsoane will share their work-in-progress. They warmly invite you to spend time in the square—feeling the space, materials, movements, and people. Engage by composing with them, simply hanging out, or taking a seat on the bench for a one-on-one performance—preferably with a pair of old shoes in hand.

• Lili Vanderstraeten is a performer and creator fascinated by the multiformity of textiles and the daily routines of (self-)care. For her, art is a wordless exploration, a dialogue with the world, and a space for collaboration. She seeks to break rigid patterns and celebrate experimentation, fragmentation, and multiplicity.

Lili develops her work by embedding herself in diverse contexts, often outside traditional venues, favouring public and semi-public spaces like parks, libraries, and monasteries. Guided by curiosity and a practice of endurance, she actively engages with her surroundings, dedicating time and presence. She believes that through experience, conversations and interactions deepen, and sensory impressions awaken an inner panorama.

Since 2020, she has co-led Spa for Spirits, a travelling meeting place with artist Leonie Buysse that questions human well-being. Since 2017, she has collaborated with multidisciplinary artist Florencia Orlandino under EllCompany, creating social-artistic projects focused on tangible and bodily experiences. She also co-curates Celestial Bodies, an international performing arts platform centred on shared practices and collective action.

In 2024, Lili began collaborating with Kito Kotsoane at the Dr. Guislain Museum, where the duo started composing with textiles in the garden of the psychiatric hospital. A strong connection developed, and since then, Kito has been a valuable collaborator and ally in shaping the direction of the research.

• Kito Kotsoane is a fashion student at the Academy of Sint-Niklaas, specializing in textile art and experimental design. He collaborated on Lieselot Siddiki’s performance at Theater aan Zee (2022), and Ferenc Balcaen’s RITCS master’s production. His internships include assisting Jan Welvaert with his 2022 winter collection runway show and working with Tom Van der Borght, where he gained expertise in non-traditional fabrics and innovative techniques. Driven by a deep interest in fashion and textile art, he strives to merge both disciplines to express his creativity and inner vision.