Photo © Hanneke Wetzer
At Kunstenfestival Watou 2026, Katja Heitmann will present an overview exhibition of her multi-year art project Motus Mori, the archive of human movement. For two months, five days a week and eight hours a day, Castle ‘De Lovie’ becomes a place to wander, observe, listen, feel, move and be moved.
Watou is an international visual arts festival held annually in the Belgian village of Poperinge. As visitor, you experience a theatrical route past various Motus Mori artworks, including one new performance piece. In each space, a different layer of the movement archive becomes visible, audible or tangible.
In this ‘institute’, you are not a spectator but a participant. You recognize the movements of others, adopt them in your own body, or perhaps share a gesture of your own. You literally move from space to space, from experience to experience, guided by live performance, music and poetry.
Motus Mori INSTITUTUM (2026)
Concept, artistic creation: Katja Heitmann
Concept, music, creative producer: Sander van der Schaaf
Video & photography: Hanneke Wetzer
Performance: the Motus Mori archive exists within the bodies of the dancers and the audience. Ornella, Anton, Eleni, Josy, Maria and Boris are all professional movement artists and have long been associated with the archive as ‘movement archivists’. They interview, archive and keep the movements of more than 2,500 people in motion through long-duration performances and audience interactions.
Production: Stichting This is not a show
Curators Watou: Danielle van Zuijlen, Bart Lodewijks, Michaël Vandebril
Poetry: Carmien Michels
Back-office: Annemarth Velds
Co-production: Kunstenfestival Watou and DansBrabant
Supported by: the Dutch Performing Arts Fund (FPK) and the Municipality of Tilburg