It's out there ... /  by fariba mosleh

… the publication about the European Balcony Project !!!
We are happy to be part of it with thebrusselsARTproject!

The European Balcony Project

The Emancipation of the European Citizens

Published by Ulrike Guérot, Verena Humer, Robert Menasse and Milo Rau

Softcover, 208 pages, Format: 170 x 240 mm
ISBN 978-3-95749-277-7, multilingual / with numerous colored illustrations

Order: Theater der Zeit

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

*every end is a beginning* /  by fariba mosleh

Les grandes vacances, summer holidays of schools had started, the city is calmed down, many people are left for holidays, all larger art and culture institutions slowed down their program, but still every day there popped up diverse events, concerts, performances, interventions, exhibitions, discoursive programs in a multitude of smaller culture producers in Bruxelles. BXL’s cultural life didn’t stop being super exciting … Still, after a year it has been time to come to an end with this project. An experiment of coming into a new city and trying to dive deep into the fields of my professional interest and passion - the local art and culture production.

thebrusselsARTproject has been part of the incredible experience of being FFffamily* in Residence, based on the personal wish of not only getting to know the life and living in another country but also of becoming more European. This is the last blog entry of that project I would love to seize the chance to share a short summary of who, why and what with you…

ÉUgality - FFffamily‘s journey of becoming more European

We are FFffamily and have decided to move from Vienna to Brussels, the informal capital of Europe, for one year. Our decision is based on claiming freedom that is only possible in a united Europe. Despite all the difficulties, such as country-specific bureaucracy, a European-wide shift to right and Brexit, FFffamily lives their ideal of ÉUgality. Fariba - a cultural manager -, Florian - a visual artist - and their 9 and 6 year old daughters Flora and Fauna aren‘t connected to the European Quarter or to an EU-institution but are living and working in Saint Gilles, Ixelles, Molenbeek, Anderlecht and Brussels Center. Flora and Fauna attend local french-speaking schools, learning local languages. This inter-generational experiment of moving to another city for one year is a privilege and should be accessible for all European citizens in the process of creating a European identity. We came to Brussels in order to become more European, challenging the question of personal security in favour of freedom. This experiment aims to spread and share those encounters and feelings. It‘s about overcoming the invisibility of the European Union in people‘s everyday matter of fact.

We are integrating culture actions into our daily lives. From September 2018 we have been building up a Studio-Apartment in our self-created exile opening up our house as a trans-national think-tank for discourse and artistic events, sharing these activities on the future of Europe with guests from all over. After settling, catching up with language gaps, creating a basis and proclaiming the European Republic within the European Balcony Project we let ÉUgality culminate around the European Parliamentary elections in a series of actions in our Studio-Apartment, at cultural hubs and in the public in Brussels. As the term ÉUgality already implicates, the whole experiment is about embracing the richness of culture and ways of living in Europe through putting a European perspective based on citizen sovereignty onto an artistic level underlining the importance of democratic values for our future generations. We create public as well as private spaces to host and meet persons. It is a process-oriented experiment involving diverse agents that is about raising awareness concerning fundamental values and putting a counter statement to current pan-European neo-nationalism and rightwing movements on the local level with transnational outreach.

Since the very beginning Fariba had been installing this blog. Writing about her diverse research and participation in the cultural life in Brussels she opened up a discourse and exchange platform via spreading it through social media. thebrusselsARTproject shall be published in a booklet in winter 2019/20.

- Vienna calling -

So many things have happened in this year. Beside their mother tongue German our daughters Flora & Fauna are meanwhile fluent in French and understand some Flemish, English and Italian as well - we adults won‘t ever reach the same level, but we try.

Various artistic activities have been happening. Florian Nitsch had an Artist residency at KNUST Festival Brussels with a collaboration, performance and exhibition reflecting upon ÉUgality, Fariba has been working with local artists and for a festival, we hosted an EUbarbecue at our Studio Apartment on the 26/05/2019, a lot of open house events with guests from all over the world, artists and non-artists, Flora played theatre at kunstenfestivaldesarts at Federico León‘s piece Yo escribo, vos dibujas and Fauna‘s drawing has been part of the group exhibition Hush-Hush at L‘ Atelier Bonamin.

Meanwhile politically no stone remained on the other in Austria. For a long time it felt really negative to leave Brussels and go back to Austria. But the crash of the extreme right government and the new elections at 29th of September give us at least hope, not only for Austria, but all of Europe. It now even feels obligatory to go and give back at least a few of the wonderful inspirations, perspectives and encounters the informal capital of Europe has offered us.

Bruxelles & Bruxellois - thank you so much for everything & see you again***

Yours, FFffamily*

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

Final art encounters at BXL* /  by fariba mosleh

Everybody is saying that BXL is kind of extinct in summer time, and it’s true, all families seem to have left the first day of vacances (or even before). BUT there is still so much going on in this city with a wonderful climate at the moment. It’s time to discover further cultural projects and initiatives and in our case, it’s time to see the things which we definitely want to see before leaving ….
There is one guy in town who really caught my attention through a project which turns something inside out and engages local communities into visual art - its Eric Vanuytven and his Chez Madeleine Night Shop series. I like his concept of approaching one of the oldest night shops in town Chez Madeleine in the city center run by Mister Moon. He organised several exhibitions in the night shop with great interventions and performances, in spring the concept was turned around again and the night shop has been invited to be exhibited at Recyclart. This time Chez Madeleine opened an exhibition by Eric Vanuytven in the newly established art space run by 5 artists’s collectives in Chateau Noir. The off-space in the massive building with endless apartments in Anderlecht not only tries to do its own thing but also engages the neighbours, for instance with the urban gardening project along the big street in front of the building as well as in the backyard where they cultivate together an impressive variety of herbs, vegetables and fruits together. Great! With his exhibition of paintings evaluated by the transformation of jelly sweets with the help of passersby Vanuytven also reached out to curious non-art interested people.

The four of us had also the great opportunity to see Solo Marathon at the GXII Festival, the yearly festival at p.a.r.t.s. Graduates are presenting works from the rosas repertoire, works in progress, talks, concerts, installations and the like at the fantastic in- and outdoor spaces of p.a.r.t.s. Brussels. It was nice to see the revised 1 to 3 minutes solos originally created for the kunstenfestivaldesartes 2017 with its incredible diversity of dancers and approaches…

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

"Africa"Museum or dealing with colonial history /  by fariba mosleh

The museum has been closed for a while due to “reorganising” the exhibition spaces, renovation, and architectural renewals. It reopened in December last year. With my anthropological background and worldwide discussions around such kind of colonial and ethnographical museums in mind, I couldn’t other than entering with an already critical gaze. Without knowing the museum from before it is hard to draw lines, but I just try to comment a bit on what I could see now.
First of all, the term “Africa Museum” which is not only used colloquially but also for all the museum’s outreach (website, tickets, guidance system, marketing, etc.) is quite misleading as it is about Central Africa, the region of today’s Democratic Republic of Congo (once private property of Leopold II and then colony of Belgium), Rwanda, Burundi and this region. The area where Belgians had been present and brought diverse samples to Europe. The official name Royal Museum for Central Africa is way more accurate. In my opinion the current museal representation frame is above all a great act of legitimating the museum’s existence (mostly because of its scientific research work), and always underlining that there are also African scientist involved. Without any doubt there is a huge importance within the diverse scientific approaches ranging from archeology, natural sciences, anthropology to modern technologies. Notwithstanding there is a lot of neutralisation of historical and contemporary exoticism. A high percentage of the museum is made up by early 20th century vitrine presentation of colonial collected goods, decorated with 21st century’s technology of videos and touch screens which in the end (at least for kids and myself) are more distracting than broadening the museum experience.
One can find some hints and notes on the wall texts of some rooms, but where is the real critical reflection? That should be visible in the display and the presentation, not only in marginalia and deepening texts. Press reviews state that the museum now “allows critical view on the colonial past” and I would agree, but do I have to take part in a special art mediation / reading session in the Afropea room of the permanent exhibition to get into touch with critical themes and perspectives? They gain little attention in minimal text passages in few of the rooms which are on display.
The automat-café with a black waiter serving old white people coffee in the end rounded up my impression of a not very post-colonial museum visit. In treating and facing their colonial history there is a scope left in Belgium (or at least in this museum). After all the emancipated cultural actions in Brussels - theme specific festivals, lectures, events, etc. - the visit at the newly re-opened Africa Museum was rather disappointing. Even though I didn’t come with much expectations as I’ve already heard many negative and critical voices among art and culture producers as well as activists and scientists in the field of post-colonialism in Belgium. Still, it is to emphasize that an opening up and willingness for a discourse is taking place, because there are definitely no easy answers for that problem.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

Biënnale von België /  by fariba mosleh

1st of nine weeks vacances from school and we start with a whole day of exhibition and art overload with our kids. Well, the museum is a literally cool place to be in those extremely hot days.
We made ourselves to Ghent to see the two quite oppositional large scale exhibitions of visual art. First we went through The Collection (1) - Highlights of the Future, a selection of the S.M.A.K collection of over 200 works by inter/national artists. Such shows sometimes tend to be quite exhaustive and boring, but not in that case. They give works huge space and are also giving artists the chance to re-install other artist’s works. It is a really vivid and refreshing presentation of a huge range of (mostly) well established artist’s work. Cool*
Next station, right around the corner in the immense adjacent industrial building Floraliënhal, the 3rd edition of the Biënnale von Belgieë / Biennale de Belgique / Biennial of Belgium - I love the multilingual culture of Belgium so much. This biennial is a self-proclaimed one, six Belgian artist’s collectives around In de Ruimte decided to curate an exhibition displaying the current spirit of the young generation of artists working in this country - Francophone, Flemish and beyond. The contrast program to the show at S.M.A.K. totally worked out for me. I enjoyed walking through this never ending hall and “listening” to the diverse voices of those artists …
Hearing a “yes” after asking the girls at the end of the day if they liked the exhibition trip today, we where quite surprised ;)

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

Afropolitan Age @ Wiels /  by fariba mosleh

Wiels, the contemporary museum institution for visual art with an internationally renown residency program. One out of the nine artist’s studios is always reserved for artists from the African continent for a residency from three to six months. Works from African residents between 2015 and 2019 are currently presented in the exhibition Multiple Transmissions: Art in the Afropolitan Age. The exhibition, curated by Sandrine Colard, shows works by eight different artists using diverse media. The presentation itself might be a bit mediocre, the discourse it is contributing to I find extremely important and exciting.
I grew up in a country dealing with the holocaust history. It’s quite different and a personal gain being in a country reflecting upon its colonial history as here in Belgium. I’ve the impression that in the art and culture fields it’s currently done intensively and in diverse ways. Only this year I have been to several multidisciplinary festivals dealing with the topic - Afropolitan Festival, Le FestivalCongolisation, Same same but different Festival at Vooruit in Gent and several others. Local and international culture producers in Belgium really want to face the part of history related to the colonialisation of Congo, which’s interrelations and mutual societal impacts in a way have never been ending.

At the presentation of the 6th edition of the Lubumbashi Biennale (24th of Oct. to 24th Nov. 2019) I was very happy to understand everything, even though it were one and a half our talks by the curators and artists in French. The Biennale is an ambitious and more than important project within rewriting histories and facing current hegemonies within the international art economy. Out of the meanwhile more than 300 art biennials worldwide, only 15 of them take place on the African continent. The more important is the emphasis on that projects and voices, as well as the exchange between diverse local and international artists and art producers.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

Hush-Hush /  by fariba mosleh

Finally - the opening where we had to go to the shortest distance. It’s the opening of the group show HUSH-HUSH at our neighbor’s Maison Bonamin. For the first big exhibition in his Atelier-House Hugo Bonamin has transformed his living and working space in the wonderful Saint Gilloise neighborhood into 4-storey exhibition building where you find curious things in every room and corner - from the cellar to the toilets, the bathroom and the garden … He has chosen 15 quite diverse artists from Brussels, Belgium and abroad, the works range from installation, sculpture, painting to spoken word and sound performance. My personal star of the exhibition is, naturally the drawing Femme Saucisse of our daughter Fauna - the exhibition is also a inter-generational one as the age of the participants range from 6 to 60 years. Our garden got also involved through the intervention Oeuvre collective by Hugo Bonamin et al. For a week now a red slide is connecting our living spaces and is changing perceptions … take a chance, the show is on view till Saturday 29th of June, where there will be staged another sound performance by Martin Loridan et Benjamin Maneyrol.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.


Workspace hopping /  by fariba mosleh

After having a permanent office at the MuseumsQuartier Vienna with a window to the Mariahilfer Straße for more than two years I very much enjoy the variety of workspaces I’ve here in Brussels during this year of brusselsArtproject. Mostly I work at our studioOne-apartment, but very often at different cafés in the neighborhood of fantastic Saint Gilles as well as in other areas of town where I meet people. And then, there are libraries to work at like Muntpunt or there are studios of artists with whom I work or whom I visit where I have the pleasure to follow my work.

Today - Studio Grilli at the recently established studio house Level Five in the heart of Brussels next to La Bourse. It is an atelier house with 3 floors full of artists from diverse disciplines and backgrounds in a 7-storied former employment office. The atmosphere is great, everybody has its quiet studio, there are common areas for exhibitions and meetings, a kitchen, a coffee break area and motivated people who even cook lunch for sale. And the best - there are rooms with a fantastic view over Brussels!
Of course this workspace hopping has it’s negative sides as well - the coffee shop working habit has become the embodiment of contemporary’s precarious working conditions of younger generations, self-employees, freelancers, exploited culture producers … for now in my case it’s different somehow as I am new in Brussels and want to get to know it from as many sides as possible.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

Sculpture Park Middelheim Museum* /  by fariba mosleh

Having two kids who are already quite resistent to the suggestion of visiting an exhibition means to look for alternative ways of exploring contemporary art together. What’s then better than a public sculpture park open for everyone in a beautiful natural setting? Middelheim Museum in Antwerp is the answer. This huge park opened to the public already in the early 1950ies displays an incredible collection of outdoor sculptures from inter/national artists. I especially liked that they are having artist residencies which invite artists to go into dialogue with the collection and show interventions in the park as Ria Pacquée currently does in a fantastic way. Besides Pacquées’ interventions like the clocks on the trees, I very much loved the Tennismuur by Ann Veronica Janssens, which is in heavy use by locals. Further the installation of Pedro Cabrita Reis The Passage of the House is really beautiful and fits perfectly into the suburban setting of Middelheim. There are more than 200 art works on display - definitely worth a looong visit*

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

Final week of kunsten19*** /  by fariba mosleh

The 24th kunstenfestivaldesartes, first edition under the direction of Sophie Alexandre, Daniel Blanga Gubbay and Dries Douibi went through its final days.
For me the final week started with the heavy theatre production Congo from Faustin Linyekula at KVS Box. The choreographer and dancer shared the stage with a Congolese singer and one actor staging a powerful performance retelling a specific period at the end of the 19th century in the history of the today Democratic Republic of Congo. Over two hours Congolese French was a bit frustrating, to be sincere, but it were multi-faceted insistent pieces of history the three performers where confronting us with. To put it in their words:
“Le Congo, ça n'existe pas. Il n’y a qu’un fleuve et la grande forêt.”
In Phantom Bird Monira Al Qadiri is reflecting upon her diversified background through the transferring Japanese necromancy onto her relation with Saudi ancestors. Although the piece had especially in the digital-visual sense appealing approaches it felt somehow unfinished and like a work-in-process, but maybe thats how conversation with ancestors works? It was definitely fascinating that there were five languages on stage (spoken Japanese and Arabic, subtitles in English, French and Flemish) - that’s BXL, love it*
Thomas Melle’s & Rimini Protokoll’s production Uncanny Valley for me personally was surprisingly good. As artificial intelligence and robots are not so my topic I wasn’t expecting anything. Hence this kind of roboted lecture performance was fantastic and picked me up exactly where I stand with my digital negation strategy.
Before the closing party we saw the young autodidact Iranian dancer Sorour Darabi’s piece Savušun سووشوون dealing with Persian mourning rituals referring to personal body and gender issues. I like its simplicity concerning the setting and use of material. Darabi comes up with quite strong gestures, the initial and final sound which accompanies these gestures goes over into one’s body. It makes curious to see more, even though the text passages and some other dramaturgical approaches weakened the performance a bit.
Three weeks of performance / theatre festival are over … I very much appreciated the atmosphere in which it was taking place. Very cool, unexcited and relaxed. The festival centre in Molenbeek at Recyclart was great and the framework program was in frequent use, all collaborators, team members spread good vibes and seem to have created and opened up spaces which will exist beyond the festival … congrats*

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

Open house @ KNUSTfestival & Sonata eve* /  by fariba mosleh

KNUSTfestival at Quai Hainaut is going into its final week. On Saturday they opened the doors for exhibitions and performances. The collective Trepkodouné, Boryana Todorova and Yumi Osanai, were performing in dialogue with the in-situ installation Recto Versus Verso from Florian Nitsch.

From the performance at KNUST we were hopping directly to the concert of violinist Julia Weeda and pianist Didel Bish, which I organized at our dear neighbour’s L’atelier Bonamin. It was a simply beautiful sonata evening. I am mostly working within contemporary art, the more I enjoy to get in touch with classical music from time to time.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.



2nd week of kunstenfestival*** /  by fariba mosleh

Kunstenfestivaldesartes 2019 is already half way through … It’s not my business to write art critiques here - there many professionals who do that way better than me, but I like to share some impressions, pics and joy about the experiences with this festival (as with the diverse other cultural encounters here in BXL).
Saturday 18th (the #ibizagate day and the fall of the far-right Austrian government): I worked at CityTalk, a conversation on abandoned houses at Decoratelier in the festival centre. Protagonists form several organisations dealing with the use of empty spaces in Brussels have been sharing experiences and discussing with each other. There are already many good practices!
Sunday 19th: I went on a beautiful journey with Ductus Midi by french dancer and choreographer Anne Lise Le Lac & Arthur Chambry at Balsamine Theatre. This object and sound based performance had many magic elements and it was perfectly chosen for the open studio framework program in the days after the performance. There it was possible to visit Anne Lise and Arthur in their current studio at Recyclart and have funny conversations while video-gaming, making pottery or working with thermo-plastic with them … processes of their artistic practice.
The celebrated German director Ersan Mondtag comes up with the quite intense topic of suicide with the piece De Living at Teatre National. Even though the for a huge part synchronical performance of Doris and Nathalie Bokongo Nkumu was really good, the postcolonial approach in combination with the use of many classical theatre elements was rather disappointing.

Within in the framework program of kunsten I saw the photo exhibtion Expo Anneessens at Recyclart and my daughters took part in Hip-Hop workshop at Charleroi Danse together with many kids from neighboring schools - they loved it.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

London - the one and only* /  by fariba mosleh

Brussels, I felt so much in love with you! Going to Gare du Midi and taking the train — 2hours later you are in the heart of the simply coolest city ever - LONDON, for me still the most dynamic, inspiring, craziest city in Europe. It’s the total materialization of capitalism. Money is simply running out of all your pockets but there is so much going on in the field of urban development, art and culture production and that on all societal levels and in many areas.
Happy about the opportunity to visit our friend, the artist Catharina Bond from Vienna, who does her MA in sculpture at the Royal College of Art and sneaking through its artist’s studios :)
Currently I am quite content to have returned to BXL but took something of the atmosphere with me and I am looking already forward to my next visit.

“YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT COMES OUT OF YOUR MOUTH WHEN YOU’RE WEARING A GORILLA MASK!”
— Guerrilla Girls

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

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Don’t forget to vote …

for EUROPE this weekend***

*finally in the intoxication of KUNSTENFESTIVALDESARTES 2019* /  by fariba mosleh

What exciting times for experimental theatre and performance enthusiasts, professionals and those who will become it - the unique kunstenfestivaldesartes opened its 3-weeks program this weekend with many premiers, encounters, parties in cultural spots on many places all over the city and at this year's festival centre Recyclart in Molenbeek and the adjacent Charleroi danse. 

Besides my own work for the festival I saw Norwegian theater maker Mette Edwardsen's new piece Penelope Sleeps with composer Matteo Fargion and the singer Angela Hicks at Kaaitheater. It’s a perfectly staged, calm poetic work with an appealing touch of humor. Not only dealing with literature referring to Odysseus' Penelope waiting for her husband, but also coming up with questions on contemporary opera with the aria of the singer.

Personally most thrilling was obviously the Belgian premier of Federico León’s work Yo escribo, vos dibujas with my daughter Flora :) … I like this complex piece on synchronicity each time a see it even more.
See also*

Meanwhile also the Wiener Festwochen have been opened - first time under the artistic direction of former kunstenfestivaldesarts maker Christophe Slagmuylder. Serveral productions from kunsten will also be shown there, as Federico León’s work for instance.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

KNUST not KUNSTEN /  by fariba mosleh

There is a new festival in this town of festivals! This week the doors of former Design Depot at Quai du Hainaut opened its doors for the first addition of KNUST Festival, Brussels Transversal Arts for which about 60 artists and collectives from diverse disciplines were selected for a 5-weeks residency and the development of sight specific interrelated artistic production. During this weeks the artists gonna work in this huge abandoned building with an incredibly thrilling architecture and on weekends a whole lot of program will be presented full of performances, concerts, exhibitions, workshops and exciting interventions. The whole festival relates somehow to this year’s Bauhaus’ anniversary and its Gesamtkunstwerk approach. I am very curious what there is to discover over the coming weeks … and definitely also because of the participation of Florian Nitsch with the project Recto Versus Verso.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

GENK not Ghent /  by fariba mosleh

Juhu* Genk again! At the train station the guy from the info office asked me 3times if I not want to go to Ghent, but I told him no to Genk, I’ve already been there.
Today is the first day of my second trip to the city of Genk in the Flemish province of Limburg with a population of about 66.000 people. I am assisting the Italian artist Francesca Grilli with the artistic research for the EU-project Acupuncture in cooperation with C-Takt and In-Situ. I have to confess, it’s surprisingly exciting. We have the pleasure of having a plentitude of thrilling encounters and get to know manifold picture of this city, a wetland area where a hundred years ago lived about 1.000 people.
For the first 3-day visit in April we were diving into the exciting history of the city from the urban development, industrial and social perspective - the landscape painters settling down here inspired by the natural surrounding at the beginning of the 20th century, the history of the 3 coal mines which made people from all over Europe to migrate to Genk and then the huge Ford company employing up to 12.000 people in Genk producing around 2.000 cars per day … crazy place this town! The mines were closed in the late 1980ies and the last Ford was produced here in 2014 before transmitting the production to Spain. Hence, Genk is an innovative place investing into opportunities for the people also after social disasters like thousands of people suddenly loosing their jobs … so we also got to know Thorpark specialized in new technologies and education or C-Mine, an wonderful cultural center - both are former mines transformed into sites of the 21st century…

This time we are focussing more on the contemporary live in Genk getting to know the underground hip hop scene talking to 3rd generation Italian migrant rappers, visiting one of the big mosques, interviewing former Ford-workers and 1st generation Italian migrants …
Let’s see what comes out of this research - we gonna propose an art piece in public space - and I am already happy about the opportunity to get to know this city, its past and current plans for the future; quite inspiring for a woman grown up in an culturally poor industrial area on the Austrian countryside …

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

*an exciting journey* /  by fariba mosleh

Meanwhile the rehearsal for Federico León’s production Yo escribo, vos dibujás at Les Halles de Schaerbeek has started. 23 locals are going on a journey with 2 professionals and a team of theater makers from Argentina and Belgium. It is always exciting and very special for every participant to be part of an community engaged art project. This piece is one of them and I can tell you that much - it’s a unique piece for actors as well as for the audience.
Flora will perform within this piece the 11th and 12th of May 3pm and the 13th of May 8:30pm.
See also here.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.


ART*BRUXELLES*ART /  by fariba mosleh

Oh WoMan, what a week - if you are into contemporary visual art and in BXL!?!
With Brussels Art Week in autumn this is the second week of the year when the city is full of art enthusiasts, artists, curators, gallerists, collectors and so on - it’s the week of ART BRUSSELS, the most important art fair in Belgium with all it’s satellite projects and parallel fair like Poppositions (nicely referred to as “poppo”), Gallery Night on Wednesday etc. Those who know me and art fairs, know that this is not really the place where I feel super comfortable and appreciate how art is handled … it’s of course a concept to be critical about. BUT it’s my second time here at Art Brussels and it’s surrounding program and I have to underline that I haven’t felt as comfortable on any art fair so far as I do in Brussels. It is staged in the beautiful atmospheric Tour and Taxis building next to the canal. It’s international, not too big and not too small. They try out different formats like inviting artists and galleries, giving juried solo shows to young artists or presenting rediscovered gallery positions. One can feel as a visitor that the exhibitors are enjoying their time at this fair, there is an open atmosphere, vivid bar life and you can easily get into conversations with one another.

Also the atmosphere in the galleries in town with an incredible amount of exhibitions starting this week is a unique one … a lot of people from the fair take their time to go and also see those. What I like about it most is the cooperation between the many art institution in this city and beyond. If you have a look into to the booklet of Art Brussels you get information about diverse art institutions - on- as well as off-spaces - and their program of these days. That’s really special and I appreciate it a lot. They are kind of working together - from so called commercial high end to non-commercial art facilitators.

It was special fun to meet several artists exhibited with whom I already worked with and from my time at ISCP New York***

Have a look to the pics which give a little impression about what’s going on these days artwise in Brussels.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.



Greetings from kunsten ... /  by fariba mosleh

… it’s official, after the casting the end of March Flora will be part of Federico León’s production Yo escribo. Vos dibujás at this year’s kunstenfestivaldesartes, opening the 10th of May. Greetings from the kick-off at the kunsten office in a welcoming atmosphere full of pleasant anticipation. Rehearsal starts next week … so does my work for the festival …

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

Back in sunny Bruxelles*** /  by fariba mosleh

After a great and intense trip to family, friends and colleagues in Austria, I am extremely happy to be back to Brussels. Another 10 hour journey and Brussels shows itself from its most beautiful side. Springtime, flowers bloom and smell wonderful. People are spreading an even better mood than already the rest of the year. Although we’ve been traveling north-west, it feels like going to warm south.
So much looking forward to the upcoming intense working time and exciting projects***

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.