Bastiaan Vandendriessche visited us for a residency in February 2026. Bastiaan (pseudonym: Reintje Reuse) is a playwright, actor, and writer who is currently exploring new mediums of expression such as painting and film. After studying International Political Science, he became fascinated by the ways in which imagination can shed a different light on human existence. Following his second studies at theatre school in Antwerp, he began writing and creating his own stories and has continued to do so ever since.
Currently he is writing his second novel ‘The Problem’ and editing his first docufiction film ‘Oh Boy’. In addition, he is collaborating with Yann Bronder (painter/visual artist) in a new docufilm project ‘The Melancholy of Being Real’. In this project they explore how artists construct and stage their own realities in an era where authenticity itself has become performative. Moving between truth and fiction, the project examines self-documentation, self-mythologizing, and narrative autonomy within a cultural landscape shaped by spectacle and political storytelling. It becomes an artistic act of revolt: constructing and dismantling reality at the same time.
This residency in the wondrous world of Helsinki will shape their first chapter of this artistic investigation.
Learn more about Bastiaan’s work at his website: www.bastiaanvandendriessche.com
Photo Egle Oddo