“Prijs van de Vrienden v/h S.M.A.K. | Coming People” is a biennial competition for young visual artists who have recently graduated from one of Belgium’s art colleges.

Transitioning into the professional art world remains challenging for recent graduates. By presenting the work of promising local talents to a broad audience, the “Prijs van de Vrienden v/h S.M.A.K. | Coming People” aims to build a bridge between the academies and the professional field.

“Coming People” already has a long-standing tradition. Between 2001 and 2011, S.M.A.K. and the Friends of S.M.A.K. organized an annual exhibition featuring selected works from the final-year presentations of Ghent’s art colleges. Since 2014, the competition has been held every two years, opening its doors to all artists graduating in Belgium.

Participating Artists: Chloë Delanghe, Joëlle Dubois, Tom Hallet, Vedran Kopljar, Stefan Nestoroski, Diana Tamane en Cléo Totti.

In O’o (2016) a human figure appears in a dark mass, struggling to make words come across. At the same time, a soundtrack reveals people shuffling around a table. They cough nervously, they breathe incoherently, while listening to a recorded tape. The subtitles accompanying the video explains that they are waiting for a revelation. But there is nothing, just pure silence. The tension is sharp and violent, the image soft and tender.

O’o refers to the name of a Hawaiian extinct bird species. In the documentary “Racing Extinction” they catch an image of the last male bird singing his final song, right before its inevitable death. This creates an apocalyptic vision of our own biggest existential fear: being the last one standing in front of a final frontier.