The Crystal Ship Summit

In addition to all the cycling and walking routes, The Crystal Ship is offering a host of creative talks for this tenth edition. On 31 March and 1 April, The Crystal Ship Summit will take place for the first time at De Grote Post in Ostend.

UBN FOCUS, invited by The Crystal Ship

Proud to kick off our traveling, spontaneous mini Us By Night edition, curating four past Us By Night highlights in a more classic theatre setup. No side events, pure focus, easy, yet top-notch content.

For our very first edition, we are heading to Ostend at the Belgian seaside. Invited by The Crystal Ship, the renowned contemporary street art festival, we land in a city where Belle Époque grandeur, modernist blocks, and raw post-war architecture collide along the North Sea. The venue is De Grote Post, a beautiful modernist cultural building.

Timetable

• 17:00 – Doors open

• 18:00 – Lydia Roberts (2025)

• 18:45 – Bráulio Amado (2025)

• Break

• 20:00 – Isabel + Helen (2024)

• 20:45 – SO-ME (2025)

• Drinks

Line-up

Lydia Roberts

An artist and photographer from England. The root of her interest lies within image making that remains unaffected by time, with the human form emerging as a reoccurring motif. She currently lives and works in the Occitanie region of France.

Instagram
Website

Bráulio Amado

A Portuguese graphic designer and illustrator currently living in New York City. He worked at Pentagram and Bloomberg Businessweek, and now runs his own practice under the name BAD STUDIOS, doing a lot of posters and record covers.

Instagram
Website

Isabel + Helen

A design duo, communicating ideas through performative sculpture. Underpinned by an ongoing exploration of movement, materials and mechanisms, their work embodies a spirit of change and transformation.

Instagram
Website

SO-ME

So-Me, whose real name is Bertrand de Langeron, is a multidisciplinary French artist. A graphic designer, director, musician, and producer, he is best known for his role as the art director of the electronic music label Ed Banger Records, founded by Pedro Winter (aka Busy P).

Instagram
Iconoclast.tv

Bring UBN Focus to Your City

UBN Focus is built to travel. We are looking for unique venues, key cities, and forward-thinking brands to host future flash events. If you want to bring the UBN curation to your town, please contact laetitia@usbynight.be.

EXPERT CONFERENCE

On April 1st, Tourism Ostend, in collaboration with Street Art Cities, will host the Expert Conference, the professional segment of The Crystal Ship Summit. This afternoon brings together an international network of professionals from the fields of culture, tourism, and street art for knowledge sharing and an exploration of current issues within the industry.

Through a series of keynotes and panel discussions, we will delve into themes such as artistic freedom in public spaces, the social impact of street art, and the interaction between street art and tourism. The Expert Conference aims to provide participants with concrete insights that are immediately applicable within their own organizations.

Program & Themes

The Expert Conference is structured around three focused panel discussions and keynotes. Each session addresses a specific tension within our field:

• The City as a Canvas – Who decides what stays, and why? Who determines what belongs on city walls? How do you organize public art without neutralizing it? Featuring speakers such as Gary McKay (Yardworks Glasgow), Ted Fenton (NL), and Daniël Claessens (All Caps Rotterdam).
• Street Art: Real social impact or 'artwashing'? Is it expected of artists to solve problems they didn't create? Do projects engage in a dialogue with neighborhoods—or just with people? Featuring Giulia Briguglia (Sperone167), Mateo Macia (Global Street Art), Katarina Moreira (STAR 2.0 Street Art for the Future), and representatives providing an economic perspective.
• Street Art and Tourism – Where promotion helps, and where it hurts. What should tourism promote? What should be consciously left alone? Featuring Jo Brooks (Global arts agent & publicist), Jesse Laufenberg (Visit Cologne), Tim Marschang (Street Art Cities), and Pieter Hens (Tourism Ostend).

Participants will leave with valuable insights ready for immediate implementation in their professional practice.

Pål Hansen

A night with David Shrigley

1 April 2026 | 20:00
ET ALORS, Ostend
Entrance: free

Renowned British artist David Shrigley joins The Crystal Ship Summit as keynote speaker for a public keynote at ET ALORS (Oostende).

Internationally celebrated for his darkly comic drawings and text-based works, Shrigley has built a career turning everyday anxieties into deceptively simple, subversive statements. His work moves between drawing, sculpture, animation and large-scale public commissions, and is held in major collections including Tate and MoMA. He currently has a museum exhibition on view at Kunsthal Rotterdam.

In this one-hour talk, Shrigley reflects on creativity, the importance of wellbeing, and the absurdities of the art world — delivered with the same dry wit and deadpan precision that defines his practice.

Expect a talk that is intelligent, irreverent and unexpectedly poignant.

The evening concludes with a Q&A.

One evening.
One voice.
At the close of two days of conversation.