Maarten Van den Bussche (°1991) is a Belgian artist and art-worker based in Brussels.
He graduated from the University of Antwerp with a master of Theatre Studies and was a participant of the a.pass (advanced performance and scenography studies) programme for artistic research. Operating in the no man’s land between theory and theatre, poetry and performance, he is a shapeshifter whose practice takes to diverse disciplinary forms.

His work, ‘L’ensorceleur est là’, invites the audience to reconsider the value of magic in our dealings with life, views of the future, and contemporary apocalyptic feelings held. 

Inspired by the metaphysical writings of speculative realists such as Tristan Garcia and Federico Campagna, the ‘present wizard’ offers you a shared reading of Flemish Tarot. 

This unique Tarot-variant, developed by several Brussels-based publishers during the second half of the 18th century, is remarkable because of the profane feel of its images, and the replacement of The Pope and La Papesse - cards, with respectively Bacchus and The Spanish Captain, a boasting macho stock character from the commedia dell’arte.

What are the consequences of this Brussels’ twist on the Tarot? How can magic inspire us to experience our world, and its possible ends, under a different light? Will you find the love of your life? And what, exactly, is the difference between an artist and a wizard? 

Maarten Van den Bussche invites you to a one-on-one storytelling encounter to explore those burning questions that you bring together.