WOW, what an incredible powerful and progressive opening was that yesterday at VOORUIT of Same, same but different - International arts festival on decolonisation and identity !?!
I am still excited about yesterday’s trip to Ghent. VOORUIT, an extremely contemporary arts and culture HUB staging a diverse range of art events from multiple disciplines in a building from the early 20th century, when socialist build it already as an art center with a ballroom and the like - unimaginable that a cultural agenda like this is staged in an building like that in Vienna (till now at least and in that dimension).
Those who attended the welcome words of artistic director, Matthieu Goeury, followed by the powerful opening speech by Heleen Debeuckelaere (Black speak Back) could hear and feel that this festival really wants to achieve and change something.
Directly after the speeches the festival was artistically opened with the screening of the documentary FAIRE-PART by the two Congolese and two Belgium directors ANNE REIJNIERS, NIZAR SALEH, PAUL SHEMISI & ROB JACOBS. The four managed to create an unique portrait about Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, former Belgian colony. Kinshasa is known as a city who doesn’t like the camera, so it ain’t easy to film there in public. Therefore the four directors have chosen a splendid way of capturing the atmosphere on the streets of Kinshasa - they decided to shot a film about Congolese performance artists in public space. And not only that they filmed incredibly powerful performances but they also reflected their approach within the movie. Great*
After that opening part the audience again was invited to move on the café of Vooruit and join the performance ‘#PUNK’ by NORA CHIPAUMIRE staged in the middle of the café and everybody could move around the stage and via the glass front also passersby could see the strong performance with great sound.
It’s convincing that Vooruit and its partner institutions for the festival Same same but different want to DECOLONIZE !!! minds, habits, thoughts, and simply the colonized. Check out the full program!
For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.