Recently, Belgium has a new federal government. Mr Vincent Van Quickenborne, who was mayor of Kortrijk since 2013, will become vice-First Minister and Minister of Justice. By law, this cannot be combined with the Mayor of Kortrijk, which is why Mrs. Ruth Vandenberghe will take over the Mayor’s office. She will be the first female mayor of Kortrijk. This means that she will also take over the role of Vincent Van Quickenborne within the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. Together with Stijn Debaillie, coordinator of Designregio Kortrijk, she will therefore represent Kortrijk within the network.
Designregio Kortrijk would like to thank Vincent Van Quickenborne for his enthusiasm and contagious work within the Network. His drive and dynamism have always been greatly appreciated by fellow cities. His speeches often did not go unnoticed, think of his enthusiastic plea for making creativity, culture and design accessible to everyone at the Mayors Forum during the Annual Conference of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the Italian Fabriano in June 2019. Van Quickenborne will continue to sit on the Board of Directors of Designregio Kortrijk.
“Kortrijk is a fantastic city. For decades we have been using creativity and design to change our city. Our entrepreneurs, schools and city institutions are so attuned to each other that new and exciting collaborations are constantly being created. I am looking forward to the new international collaborations so that we can continue to learn from each other”.
Mayor Ruth Vandenberghe
Within the Creative Cities Network, Stijn Debaillie will remain coordinator of the UNESCO Design Cities together with the city of Wuhan until 2022. So Kortrijk will continue to play a very committed role.