Festival Kanal
Take space – Give space – Make space in the Brussels canal zone, Festival Kanal first edition will: examine the challenges, opportunities and problems of the Brussels canal zone via art and cultural projects, act as a lever to steer various social, economic and urban development processes in a specific direction, be a celebration for many people, a positive signal, a contribution towards creating a better image at many levels and create six sustainable art projects in public spaces by 2016.
The festival invites artists and the public to place themselves in the contemporary, metropolitan public space where the initial task seems to be ‘learning to live together on the basis of difference’.
The concept of Cultural Citizenship is central to the festival’s thinking about the development of the Brussels canal zone (and Brussels as a whole) and its cultural diversity. Citizenship based not on nationality, assimilation or tolerance but with a focus on shared experience, learning processes and empowerment.
The festival’s starting point is the mobile duality that is specific to the modern canal zone. The canal is still a heavily used waterway. But whereas for centuries the canal zone was a point of arrival for workers and a hectic transit zone, nowadays the area is increasingly characterised by social immobility.
Brussels has the youngest age structure in the country. Within Brussels, the canal zone in turn is one of the youngest districts. However, at a time when the population is ageing rapidly, this is not a point in favour of the canal zone. The Festival Kanal will show a different picture of the ‘canal youth’. Young people will play a prominent role in the festival and, above all, they will speak and act for themselves.
The Festival Kanal, 2010 edition, must be seen as a laboratory that is preparing for the three big editions in 2012, 2014 and 2016. But nevertheless, this four-day event has been conceived as a full festival in its own right. Four days of action, intensity and excitement!
Multi-disciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-cultural...
Programme
The festival invites the public to stroll (or cycle, drive, etc.) to the canal zone to discover, learn, think and take action in a city context. The projects literally get the public moving and enable participants to get to know many aspects of the different districts. In doing this, they are also helping to improve the image of this area and therefore of the whole city.
Trail
Visual arts, architecture and photography + international colloquium: Art in Common Space
Walks
Walks guided by young people and many artists from different disciplines.
Music trail
featuring ‘Canal song’ – on Sunday twenty or so choirs will sing at different half-open locations on both sides of the canal.