Jozef Wouters

BWE.003 - Jozef Wouters


Before I met Jozef Wouters, he was simply Mr. John to me. The husband of the talented costume and clothes designer Lila John.
It didn’t take me very long to realize that Mr. John was not just a cast member of the Real Housewives of Brussels, but an artist very much involved in the Belgian cultural scene.


Yes, Jozef has been working between scenography, performance, architecture and visual art for almost twenty years.
But the interesting part is perhaps not what he builds, it is what he allows a place to become:
A stadium.
A swimming pool.
A dance scene.
A museum.
A theatre stage.
An old factory in Molenbeek that became a workshop, an artistic space, a meeting place, and eventually a kind of home for a whole group of people.


In 2016, he founded Decoratelier with Menno Vandevelde.
Where Artists come to work.
Where Technicians build things.
Where Performances happen.
Where People meet.
Sometimes they eat here. Sometimes they dance here.


Decoratelier is a landmark of the Brussels scene, where wooden structures and installations are constantly being built, dismantled, and reinvented.


This year, Jozef Wouters created The Latecomers, presented during Kunstenfestivaldesarts at Decoratelier.
So what do you do when the place you have been building around is about to become something else?
You look at it again.
You look at what is underneath.
You listen to the people who built it, the people who use it, or perhaps the people who will come after.


Yes, Jozef’s space brings people together.
It changes the way they move.
It changes who speaks.
It changes who gets to look.
And sometimes, simply, it gives people somewhere to be.


Text & Podcast by Alban Ovanessian
Produced by Entwined