To honour the legacy of Caroline Pauwels (curator of TAZ#2021) and build a bridge between art and science, TAZ, deAuteurs, VUB, KVS and De Grote Post launched the Caroline Pauwels Fellowship. Applications were submitted by candidates from theatre, dance, opera, music, circus and more. After careful deliberation, the jury could select only one winning idea: Martha Balthazar and Leon Adriaensen’s project Aha.

Aha is an intimate yet vibrant dialogue about understanding, explaining, and how meaning emerges from these processes. It starts from the childlike experience of a sudden insight: the moment when something that was incomprehensible just moments before suddenly becomes clear. A small moment of ecstasy that shows that science can also be a physical experience: the aha moment.

Leon Adriaensen is a physicist and climate scientist affiliated with Ghent University (UGent) and the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium (KMI). Martha Balthazar is a theatre-maker and writer who has created, among others, the performances Rustoord, Boerenpsalm and Birds.

The performance will premiere at Chambres d’O 2026 on 24 and 25 January.

They will receive financial support from deAuteurs (€10,000) and VUB (€2,500), as well as further support from TAZ, KVS and De Grote Post.