° 1988

Lives and works in Borgerhout, Antwerp (BE).

Maarten Inghels is a visual artist, writer and poet. His interdisciplinary practice explores the boundaries of fiction through novels, performances, sculptures and installations in public space.

With The Invisible Route (2017), he created city maps for pedestrians marking every surveillance camera, allowing people to cross the city unseen in an age of surveillance. His sculptures and performances, including the monumental SAVE OUR SOULS (2022), made from 160 tonnes of sand, and his journey on a polystyrene raft shaped like the word WATER (2018), reveal an ongoing dialogue between language, space and community.

As an author, Inghels has published several novels and poetry collections that have been nominated for the Herman de Coninck Prize, the BNG Literature Prize and the Vincent Van Meenen Prize. With Het mirakel van België (2021), he wrote a hybrid novel about his nerve-racking relationship with the world’s greatest con artist. Hannibal & Gideon (2025) is an adventurous reconstruction of an elephant’s journey across the Alps in the footsteps of Hannibal. Achttien (2026) is a fictional portrait of Belgian Crown Princess Elisabeth and an ode to the imagination. From 2016 to 2018, he served as Antwerp’s city poet, with his poems appearing as tattoos, plants and public surveys.