ANTWERP PRIDE 2026

2026 marks the nineteenth (19th) edition of Antwerp Pride. From Wednesday 5 to Sunday 9 August, Antwerp in Belgium will once again be taken over by rainbow vibes. Prides are a mix of celebration – parties – and activism and advocacy. For the 2026 edition, the organising committee focuses on fearing less and being fearless.

Antwerp’s visual arts community will make its collective debut in the Antwerp Pride Parade this summer, bringing together artists, galleries and independent art spaces under a new initiative called Together. The project marks the first organised participation of the city’s fine arts sector in the annual Pride parade and combines a shared parade float with exhibitions, film screenings, performances and community events across Antwerp during Pride month, which August in Antwerp.

The Together initiative was founded by artist Carla Arocha after noticing that, despite Antwerp’s internationally renowned contemporary art scene, the visual arts community had never established a visible collective presence in the Pride parade.

Nine organisations are participating in the inaugural edition: AAIMACHINE, Annie Gentils Gallery, BURO_ASAP, CASSTL, Kunsthal Extra City, Pizza Gallery, Melis & Piron, Studio Palermo and TICK TACK. Alongside joining the parade on Saturday 8 August, the venues will present exhibitions and public events inspired by Antwerp Pride’s 2026 theme, ‘Fearless’.

Pride as both celebration and political statement

According to the organisers, the initiative is intended not only as a celebration of LGBTQIA+ identities but also as a reaffirmation of Pride’s political origins.

In a letter accompanying the project, Arocha traces the roots of Pride back to the first Christopher Street Liberation Day March in New York in 1970, organised after the Stonewall uprising. She reflects on witnessing the AIDS epidemic during the 1980s and 1990s, describing how friends and role models died while governments and society were slow to respond.

Although HIV/AIDS is now far better controlled in much of the Western world, she argues that discrimination, exclusion and fear remain contemporary issues.

For Arocha, Antwerp Pride therefore fulfils two complementary roles: it remains a political demonstration while simultaneously providing space for celebration, visibility and community. The Together project seeks to position the city’s artistic community firmly within both aspects of the event.

Clara Lissens’ ‘Selfportrait’ at the centre of the float

The artistic centrepiece of the Together float will be ‘Selfportrait‘, a monumental inflatable sculpture by Antwerp multidisciplinary artist Clara Lissens.

The white inflatable depicts a crouching girl and explores questions surrounding identity, existence and emptiness. According to the organisers, the sculpture examines how air — invisible and shapeless by nature — becomes temporarily contained within the form of the human body. Air functions simultaneously as emptiness and as the essential substance that makes life possible.

The sculpture also emits high-pitched whistling sounds, described as both a warning and a subtle reminder of its presence, while artists accompanying the float will walk alongside it throughout the parade in support of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Lissens, who works across music, performance and visual art, frequently incorporates inflatable sculptures into her practice. Her work explores identity, structures and the void through abstract forms animated by air and sound.

Limited edition sculpture to support the project

As part of Together, artist Amir Torres Darwich has created a limited edition of just 30 sculptural candles mounted on metal legs and feet.

Each work features one of the artist’s characteristic animal figures and will be available through all participating art spaces during the initiative.

Exhibitions across the city

Rather than concentrating activity in a single venue, Together spreads its programme across numerous galleries and artist-run spaces throughout Antwerp.

‘UNI’ explores solidarity and diversity

One of the largest projects is ‘UNI‘ at Annie Gentils Gallery, running from 1 August until 6 September.

Curated by Annie Gentils Gallery together with Tom Sanders, the group exhibition brings together around thirty LGBTQIA+ artists and allies connected to Antwerp’s contemporary art scene. The organisers say the exhibition responds to growing international pressure on LGBTQIA+ rights by emphasising artistic freedom, solidarity and inclusion.

Rather than attempting to define queer identity, ‘UNI’ presents a broad range of artistic practices that resist fixed categorisation, encouraging ambiguity, dialogue and multiple perspectives. The exhibition includes works by artists including Luc Tuymans, Kasper Bosmans, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Stef Van Looveren, Clara Lissens and numerous others, alongside works by deceased artists Andrew Webb, Marc Rossignol and Paul-Armand Gette.

The exhibition also forms part of a broader charitable initiative. Part of the proceeds will support Çavaria, Woeker, alQaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society, the African Human Rights Coalition and Unichir.

During the exhibition, Boutros Gallery will simultaneously screen Sietske Van Aerde‘s film ‘1000 Girls, A Place We Go‘, set in the same Antwerp neighbourhood where it is shown.

AAIMACHINE focuses on queer cinema

AAIMACHINE will transform its Berchem space into a temporary cinema between 2 and 9 August.

The programme, titled ‘VOLUME 21‘, brings together artists’ films and documentaries exploring freedom, tolerance and acceptance. Organisers describe queer identity not simply in terms of sexual orientation but as a broader critical and artistic perspective that challenges conventional ideas surrounding identity, language, representation and the body.

‘Soft Pride’ celebrates vulnerability

BURO_ASAP will present ‘Soft Pride‘, a one-day programme created by Ilva Leva.

The event deliberately contrasts with the fast pace often associated with Pride celebrations, instead creating what organisers describe as a gentle, intimate environment centred on tenderness, vulnerability, queer kinship and slowness. Visitors will be invited to experience performances while relaxing in a space intended for reflection and connection.

CASSTL presents ‘Absence, Returned’

CASSTL’s contribution is ‘Absence, Returned‘, featuring artists Yves de Brabander and fashion designer Cedric Jacquemyn.

The exhibition explores memory, disappearance and identity through clothing, photography, installation and fragmented imagery. Rather than reconstructing what has been lost, the artists investigate how absence itself continues to shape memory, identity and experience. Within the context of Pride, the exhibition suggests that identity remains fluid and continually formed through relationships, desire, loss and return.

De Brabander contributes the installation ‘Ancestral Inferno‘, inspired by inventories of looted and disappeared cultural heritage, while Jacquemyn presents ‘E/Motion of a Garment‘, in which empty garments evoke bodies that have departed yet continue to leave traces behind.

‘Biophony: Beats of Love’

Kunsthal Extra City continues its collaboration with Antwerp Queer Arts Festival through ‘Biophony: Beats of Love‘, on display until 16 August.

The exhibition features work by twelve artists connected with the festival and emphasises friendship, collective practice and shared artistic engagement rather than following a fixed curatorial concept. Throughout the exhibition, additional events and activities will respond to the participating artists’ interests and ongoing work.

Community participation

Melis & Piron will transform its gallery into an open studio under the title ‘WHAT’S YOUR +‘, inviting visitors to create artworks in a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, embroidery and writing. Participants will be encouraged to donate completed works to a future charity auction.

Pizza Gallery, Studio Palermo and Hantrax will participate directly on the Together parade float, while TICK TACK‘s Cinema TICK TACK programme will present Benjamin Francis‘ film ‘For Your Own Good‘ each night between 1 and 15 August. Projected in the public space opposite Harmonie tram stop, the 22-minute work examines how ideas surrounding care and hygiene can become mechanisms of social control within contemporary capitalist society.

A new presence within Antwerp Pride

For the organisers, Together represents more than simply adding another float to Antwerp Pride.

By bringing together artist-run initiatives, commercial galleries, nonprofit organisations and individual artists under one banner, the project aims to establish a lasting place for Antwerp’s visual arts sector within Pride’s annual programme.

Its organisers describe the initiative as an affirmation that contemporary art has long provided space for queer voices, experiences and forms of expression, and argue that making this relationship publicly visible within Antwerp Pride reflects both the city’s artistic identity and Pride’s continuing role as a platform for visibility, solidarity and political engagement.

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ANTWERP PRIDE 2026 | Galleries and artists unite under ‘Together’ initiative with shared float, exhibitions and queer art programme