For the fourth year running, Existenz is organising a competition for all students in Belgium. Participants have twelve hours to use a single powerful image to bring an idea or concept to life in response to a socially relevant question. This time, the question was: ‘What on earth is to become of Flemish ecclesiastical heritage in a changing society?’ The case study was the monastery of the Brothers of Charity on Brusselsestraat in Leuven.

“Now that society has turned its back completely on Christianity, we must be just as radical in repurposing the ecclesiastical heritage. Let’s give everything that society rejects and abhors a place in churches and monasteries,’ reads the drastic proposition put forward by the SPL731 team. Brothels, slaughterhouses, rubbish tips and casinos: the very places people would most like to banish or hide away are, in fact, crucial to the development of a contemporary society. The team wants to give these practices – summarised as the seven deadly sins – a central place in the heart of the city. And that naturally leads you to the church. “Once a house of God, now a house of taboos.” Taboos and social misfits are thus made open to discussion and may eventually, one day, be accepted. At the same time, the team subtly denounces the decadence and hypocrisy within the Church.