All posts tagged: Vegan summer fest

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 …

#72 Vegan icecream (and more) at Bar Italiano, Ghent ***

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Restaurant review #72 – After our lovely lunch at saladbar Zukini in Ghent (see my review here), we went to Bar Italiano for a vegan icecream. It is only a 5 minute walk from the Overpoortstraat. This was a bit of a trip down memory lane too, as this was the neighbourhood where we lived a couple of years as students! There were three vegan ice-cream flavours: chocolate, speculoos and mint. The ice-creams are homemade and based on rice. I went for the chocolate and mint, my friend for the speculoos and chocolate (2€ for a scoop of ice cream, so this totalled 8€). I had already tasted this icecream before, at Vegan Summerfest in 2015 (see our blogpost with the review here). And it’s really good! Afterwards, we had some tea. There’s a nice selection of teas to choose from at the counter. (2,50€ or if you combine it with an ice cream only 2,30€). There are always vegan options available at Bar Italiano (eg pastas) and on Thursday vegan specialties (like vegan lasagne). The owner was very friendly and seemed very …

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 …