All posts tagged: Be Vegan

Impressions from Vegan Summerfest 2018, Ghent

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Vegan Summerfest 2018 is already a couple of months behind us, but I still wanted to add some photos of the event to my blog. I have documented all the previous editions (2015-2016-2017), so also did not want to have this edition missing. So here are some impressions! The edition in 2018 was the first time Vegan Summerfest was held in the EXPO in Ghent, a more spacious and accessible location. That also comes with a price, and this year was also the first time the festival was no longer free, but with an admission fee. But that also came with a spacious parking, and Expo has great connections with public transport of Ghent. We were there early, as we wanted to avoid the bigger masses that usually come in the afternoon. There was however a huge queue leading up to the entrance though. Although it was pretty dark that morning, luckily it stayed dry! Once inside there were the usual suspects: lots of stalls with food, some with clothes, and body and care products. …

Our visit to Veggieworld 2017, Brussels

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Veggieworld is an international vegan fair, that has been organised since 2011, in 8 different European countries. In October 2017, it was organised in Brussels for the first time. Veggieworld was located in Tour and Taxis. Nicely renovated old industrial buildings on the north side of Brussels. Parking just next door (a bit expensive, 7 euro, whether one was there for half an hour of half a day didn’t matter), good facilities (accessible toilets). Bright place, with high ceilings. It was unclear to us at first – going by the name – whether this was a vegan or vegetarian fair (it is vegan). We feel “Veganworld” would be a much more appropriate, clearer and better name. Veggie usually refers to vegetarianism, not veganism, so that is confusing. And using the word veggie instead of vegan makes ‘vegan’ less known and even sound more extreme (see our post: just say the word: vegan!). Admission was 8euro pp (10 euro on the day itself), which we felt was a reasonable price. Of course a free festival like …

Lots of food, people and sunshine! Vegan Summerfest 3, Ghent

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At the end of August we went to Vegan Summerfest in Ghent, organised by Belgian organisation BE Vegan. We were also at the previous editions in 2015 and 2016. The location was the same as last year, in the Artcube, at the edge of Ghent. The day started a bit cloudy, but afterwards there was glorious sunshine in the afternoon (even left me a bit sunburnt!). It was a lovely Summer day. I made a short clip for IG from inside and outside. This was when it was still very calm, around midday. In the afternoon, the outside square was filled with people and huge lines queuing at most stalls. Again, as previous years, a huge turn out! View this post on Instagram Vegan Summerfest #ghent #bevegan #vegansofbelgium #vsf #vsf2017 #vegansummerfest A post shared by trudi_brugesvegan (@trudi_brugesvegan) on Aug 20, 2017 at 7:15am PDT A lot of familiar brands and products at the stalls, but also some new discoveries. Upon entering the hall, we immediately queued at Bakkerij Frimout, to buy about a dozen of Danish …

Impressions from Vegan Summerfest 2016, Ghent

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A couple of weeks ago, Belgian organisation BE Vegan organised the second edition of Vegan Summerfest. We went to the first edition in 2015 (see our post here) and surely did not want to miss it! This year, the festival was in the Artcube in Ghent, where BE Vegan had also hosted a talk by Jo-An McArthur last Winter (see blogpost here). A more spacious venue than last year, with more room inside and outside. We went early to avoid the big crowd as much as possible and to secure a parking spot nearby (by the time we left early afternoon, people were already parked several blocks away from the venue). The foodtrucks were outside and inside were two halls with stalls of organisations like Bite Back, Animal Rights, and also several shops selling shoes, books, food and cosmetics. With benches to sit down and relax a while. During the afternoon, there were some talks in yet another hall. Would have loved to hear Ruby Roth‘s ‘Vegan is Love‘ talk (via Skype), but that was scheduled for the late …

Animal activism with photos. An evening with Jo-Anne McArthur.

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On Saturday October 17th, Belgian vegan organisation BE Vegan organised and evening with Canadian photographer Jo-Anne McArthur. In the vegan or animal rights community, Jo-Anne McArthur is well known for her work on the project We Animals, which resulted in a book with the same title. We Animals is a series of portraits of animals in the human environment: animals used for food production, clothing, experiments and companionship. We Animals is not just meant to be a series of portraits, there’s also a moral message. Taken from the We Animals website: We Animals aims to break down the barriers that humans have built which allow us to treat non-human animals as objects and not as beings with moral significance. The objective is to photograph our interactions with animals in such a way that the viewer finds new significance in these ordinary, often unnoticed situations of use, abuse and sharing of spaces. The photos are meant to make us question what is normal, and show it from the perspective of the animal. Some of her photos were also featured in the exhibit ‘Het …

Our visit to Vegan Summer fest in 50 photos! Belgium’s first vegan festival

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Yesterday BE Vegan hosted Belgium’s first* vegan festival in Gentbrugge. Ghentbrugge is near the city of Ghent, about 40km from Bruges, so it was only about a half hour drive for us. We decided to go early. Partly because the weather forecast warned for possible thunderstorms in the late afternoon. Also because the inscriptions on the FB event led to suggest there was going to be a huge turnout (more than 4000 people). So we wanted to avoid the ‘big crowd’ and we arrived a little bit before noon. The festival was mainly inside one of the halls of KERKGent. Inside the hall were stalls of organisations like Bite Back, Animal Rights and host organisation BE Vegan, and also several shops selling mainly shoes, books and food. In one shielded corner of the hall were some seatings for the scheduled talks (about vegan activism, vegan bussinesses etc). The big foodstalls were outside and next to that was a tent where the food demos took place.    Although we were there early, the queues for the main foodstalls outside were getting longer rapidly. We …