Founded in 2011 in Namur (Belgium), the KIKK Festival's mission is to promote digital and creative cultures and to merge art, culture, science and technology. In 2018, the event welcomed more than 25,000 international visitors.Gilles Bazelaire, founder of the KIKK Festival, will present the different stages and challenges that accompanied the development of this project and how it has become deeply rooted in his community. This journey through the KIKK adventure will also allow us to better understand the links between a cultural event and its ecosystem and to discover the different ways to forge links with the community in order to become essential to the development of its immediate environment.
Gilles Bazelaire, 43, defines himself as a "hyperactive serial entrepreneur".
He perfectly embodies the "Digital Wallonia", this rising generation of young entrepreneurs who grew up on Walloon lands, in this case in Namur, and are now working to feed them back.
With a few friends, he created the Dogstudio agency, which for 12 years has been working to find communication solutions using digital tools: websites, applications, installations, interactive games... With his partners, Gilles also creates Superbe, a company that develops artistic installations for events, museums, festivals, installations that also use digital technologies, in the tradition of the Musicomaton, this surprising booth where you improvise yourself a drum machine for the time of a sound shot...
This enthusiast of possibilities has travelled quite a bit, discovering in other countries the immense potential of digital technology and, paradoxically, the extent of the Walloon lack in this area. If the soil was favourable and the seeds of talent numerous, Namur lacked this spark, this trigger to transform the quivering into a boiling of creative projects, at the service of all.
And to think that bringing Rome to you would not be bad either, and would undoubtedly make it possible to awaken the market, public authorities, competition, and thus to raise Wallonia's digital level. He will therefore become a facilitator, by seeking out experts in the field.
Including: the Kikk festival is born, a first edition in 2011, a success.
Combining the artistic with the economic, the event is a meeting place between worlds, a joyful brothel where the choice between the beautiful and the useful does not arise, since the artistic approach of one can perfectly serve the business of the other. At Kikk, we talk about 3D printers, we talk about high-tech sports or graphic design, we talk about design, investment, pixels, nanotechnologies
and data visualisation, both in French and English, to the rhythm of original conferences.
Activating new uses, alternative management methods and a transdisciplinary approach, he is now involved in the TRAKK project, a creative hub and Fab Lab namurois, whose aim is to encourage the emergence of creative projects in the region.
Finally, Gilles frequently participates in international events or digital festivals to share his experience around the creative industries, third places and the digital economy.