Sint-Niklaas 11 July 2026

Matrix

Music is by definition a human means of expression, which manifests itself in the ‘now’. That is exactly where MATRIX [New Music Centre] (BE) wants to be: MATRIX keeps a finger on the pulse of the contemporary music scene. Just like the culture and ecosystem we live in, this musical scene is in constant motion. And we are moving along!

Being explorers and inventors, we are constantly scouting the great potential that contemporary music has to offer for music education. Music teachers, schools, musicians, concert and festival organizations and the public can rely on MATRIX in their quest for information and educational guidance. MATRIX wants to contribute to a cultural awareness that helps to overcome prejudices against the ‘other’ and reticence about the unknown.

matrix-new-music.be/en/

The Black Mulberry tree in the Brouwershof in Sint-Niklaas is seen as a “living monument to those who died from asbestos.” We want to commemorate the asbestos victims and to discuss and foster discussion of the asbestos issue.

In 1987 Christiane Thijs, whose father worked at SVK (the former asbestos factory) died from asbestos poisoning.

This Black Mulberry tree has become a meeting place. It is situated in a crucial location. On one side, it’s the centre of an arc formed by the social housing units of the Sint-Niklaas Housing Company, and on the other side, there are the gardens of the uniform houses on Nieuwstraat and Hazewindstraat. The tree is a stone’s throw from the abandoned grounds of SVK, the former asbestos factory Scheerders Van Kerchove’s United Factories, a stone’s throw from the Turkish Mosque (there is a connection between mulberries and Turkish culture), and thirty meters past a pharmacy, the place where Christiane Thijs shook out her father’s work jacket and inhaled the deadly asbestos dust.