CLEA ArtScience department

Systems At Play: Regenerate Your Knowledge – A Living Archive Tour

What if Knowledge Isn’t Fixed Facts, but a Living, Evolving Process?
Set within the Archives de la Ville de Bruxelles and the exhibition “Science (De)constructed,” this workshop invites you to reimagine knowledge as a regenerative ecosystem—constantly shaped and reshaped through interaction and creative engagement with existing materials. Through a joint exploration of the Archive’s spaces, creative interaction with the exhibits, collective reflection and collaborative rewriting exercises, you’ll uncover how knowledge evolves through imaginative recreation and playful renewal.

Participants will engage with select elements of the exhibition not as static artifacts, but as dynamic catalysts for personal reflection and collective creativity. These interactions inspire relational thinking, unlocking new perspectives and possibilities.

Together, we will experience the archive as a lens for renewable knowledge—continuously regenerated through processes of selection, organisation and connection. This approach envisions a transformative blurring of boundaries between institutionalised knowledge and personal, embodied understanding, envisioning knowledge’s potential as a force for social and political agency.

Open to adults and young people (16+). No previous experience needed—just an open mind, willingness, and curiosity.
This workshop is part of a tryptic conceived by CLEA ArtScience Research Group exploring the relationship between play, systems and the emergence of knowledge.
The other workshops taking place on Sunday afternoon can be found here (insert link)

About CLEA

The Center Leo Apostel (CLEA) is a unique transdisciplinary research hub at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, (VUB) where scientists, artists, and philosophers work closely together on some of the most intriguing questions. These include: How do natural systems organise themselves without a central leader? How do brain systems work? How do ecosystems function? And how might we combine artistic knowledge and scientific knowledge in interesting ways? These are just a few of the aspects we’ll explore in this participatory workshop.

To register click here: https://www.billetweb.fr/curieucity-marolles

Ohme

Biometrika Workshop

Bring your laptop to CurieuCity to explore the interaction between technology, body signals, and artistic performance during Biometrika Workshop!

Participants will receive instructions to learn the basics of electronics and computer coding, allowing them to use their own biosignals, such as heartbeats, to build real-time visual and sound effects.

We’ll be using TouchDesignerr, a tool for creating dynamic digital art (non-commercial version is free), and Thonny, an open-source software to program Raspberry Pi Pico. Please download and install both in advance on your laptop:
•⁠ ⁠TouchDesigner: https://derivative.ca/download
•⁠ ⁠Thonny: https://thonny.org/

We’ll help you if you need assistance. Together we’ll get started on your first prototype or guide you towards more advanced applications.

Biometrika—a project developed by Ohme in collaboration with Pilar and FARI—is an immersive and innovative experience blending art, science, and technology in a playful and participatory approach. The project also includes an artist residency. The deadline for the residency open call is 30/11/24.
👉 More info about the open call: https://ohme.be/call-for-applications-biometrika-residency/

To register click here: https://www.billetweb.fr/curieucity-marolles

Mazette

Chemistry and Hops: The Art of Brewing with Tasting

Mazette, the cooperative café-brasserie in the Marolles, brews its own beer from start to finish. Come and discover the steps involved in creating this traditional Belgian beverage and see how Mazette has optimized its space to create the perfect short supply chain! Tastings will also be offered during the tour.

To register click here: https://www.billetweb.fr/curieucity-marolles

The Rubberbodies Collective

One More Drop

How much can a person contain? Working in a laboratory day in and day out. Between glass tubes, vials and refrigerators, organising blood. While pandemics spread and wars are fought. Disaster approaches from a distance. Strange reflections, desires and visions leak into the regulated routines of a bloodless environment made of seemingly hermetic walls and vessels.

With One More Drop, Ira Melkonyan and Jimmy Grima continue their research into the performativity of liquids from a transnational feminist perspective, venturing into what is probably the most metaphorically loaded bodily fluid. Centring blood and other biological substances as performative agents, this transdisciplinary performance explores fantasy and mysticism surrounding leaking bodies, political borders and a sense of connection.

Friday 29 nov. 19:00 – 19:45.
Saturday 30 nov. 19:00 – 19:45, followed by an After Talk with Ira Melkonayn, led by Arshia Ali Azmat from 20:00 – 20:40

To register click here: https://www.billetweb.fr/curieucity-marolles

ULB - inforsciences

Lichensgo – Exhibition

Discover the photo exhibition created by students in Secondary 5 Chemistry Techniques at the Athénée Royal Andrée Thomas. These students took part in Lichens GO, a participatory science programme aimed at assessing the quality of the air around us by studying lichens. 🌱

Lichens, slow-growing organisms sensitive to air pollution, play a unique role in measuring cumulative pollution over several years, complementing modern measurement sensors. Through this project, students were trained to recognise different species of lichen, understand their ecological role, and apply a scientific protocol in the field.

After their training, the students set off to explore the area around the Marais Wiels to assess local air quality using the Lichens GO protocol. Their observations and results are presented in the form of photographs exhibited at La Marelle, offering a visual insight into their work and the conclusions drawn from this study of the urban environment.

To see the pre-project, click here: https://curieucity.brussels/en/community/lichensgo-pre-festival-project/

This exhibition is a testament to young people’s commitment to environmental research and shows the importance of participatory science in understanding and preserving our environment.

Daniel Linehan & Michael Helland

Land Connection Practice

Daniel Linehan and Michael Helland guide outdoor embodied movement practices to help us to connect with our senses and our environment.
They create time for physical play and moments of active urban meditation, to re-connect to our bodies and to our surroundings inside the space of a park. A park is a human-cultivated place, but also a place that responds to a basic human need to connect with the more-than-human, with green grass and blue sky and the wild beings that fly above and burrow below.
We will stand, walk, listen, talk, and move together to inhabit a place in the here and now, with our full bodies and our open attention.

The Land Connection Practices are accessible for everybody: citizens, visitors, commuters, … dancers or non-dancers alike.

To register click here: https://www.billetweb.fr/curieucity-forest

Daniel Linehan

Iris

In his solo “Iris”, Linehan considers how movement and words can be a form of magic, a way to cast new spells. His dance and his poetry aim to give voice to the invisible connections that join us together with our fellow living beings near and far – the plants and the birds, the insects and mushrooms, the sky and the living Earth. In ancient Greek mythology, Iris was the goddess of the rainbow and a messenger of hope. Linehan sees hope in the process of learning to see our inherent relatedness with the colorful spectrum of planetary life that we are a part of.

To register click here: https://www.billetweb.fr/curieucity-forest

Marion Neumann

The Mushroom Speaks

What if the fungus could help us address and radically change our relationship to this world?
CurieuCity wraps up the fungi night with a screening of the documentary The Mushroom Speaks. The film explores the healing qualities of fungi and their ability to regenerate. This personal journey takes on a walk alongside parasites, symbionts and decomposers offering ideas of both interconnectedness and collaboration. Driven by a vision of resistance, the encounters seek possibilities of renewal and question what connects us when the world seems to be falling apart. With mushrooms and their allies the film invites to imagine a myco-cultural (r)evolution.

To register click here: https://www.billetweb.fr/curieucity-forest

Credits:

With: Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Franz Xaver Vollenweider, Peter McCoy, Geoffroy Renaud, Ursula Weiher, Vanja Palmers, Frida Krieger
Direction & Image: Marion Neumann
Sound Design & Music: Olga Kokcharova
Editing: Marion Neumann, Orsola Valenti
Sound Editing & Mix: Adrien Kessler
Image Postproduction Studio: Studio Rougegorge, Robin Erard
Camera Assistant: David Huwiler
Graphic Design: Thomas Perrodin
Website: Jeff Gaudinet, Raphaël Arbuz

Production: Intermezzo Films SA, Katia Monla & Luc Peter
Production Assistant: Aurélie Oliveira Pernet, Stéphanie Severino
Administration: Karla Kolder
Accounting: Annick Kammacher

ANAGRAM ASBL

Fungi Night / Anagram – Culinary Performance

Immerse yourself in a sensory journey where art and ecology come together around a table. For Fungi Night, Anagram invites you to a one-of-a-kind performance dinner, where every bite connects you to the artists’ works and the secrets of mycelium. A rare and intense moment, to be savoured without moderation.

Anagram, the Brussels-based association that reinvents environmental awareness through contemporary art, is offering you an exceptional opportunity to share in the experience. During this dinner, the creations of the artists present are transformed into an immersive culinary experience, inviting each guest to explore the subtle links between nature, art and gastronomy.

Practical information:

Registration required (places limited).
Participation free of charge.

Join us for an evening where flavours, ideas and emotions weave together like the threads of a mycelium.

To register click here: https://www.billetweb.fr/curieucity-forest

Joske Ruytinx (VUB), Theresa Spielmann,SpecXCraft (ULB), Sara Manente, Britt Bakker

Fungi Talks

Join us for a stimulating debate with experts and artists as they introduce the world of fungi and speculative crafting as well as react to the fungi expo and explore the fascinating links between science, art and nature.

Speakers include Joske Ruytinx, Britt Bakker, Rafaella Houlstan-Hasaerts, Giulietta Laki  and Sara Manente, each bringing a unique perspective on the role of fungi in our ecosystem and in our creative imaginations. What if fungi could help us radically change our relationship with the world?

About the panellists:

Joske Ruytinx is a professor bio-engineering sciences at VUB.  With her research team, she is studying fungal biodiversity and the role of microorganisms in enhancing plant resilience. She is particularly interested in mycorrhizal fungi. Joske completed her PhD at Hasselt University and a postdoc as an Agreenskills Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow at INRAe Nancy, France. Joske has also been a visiting scientist at Montana State University, USA before settling in Brussels.

Britt Bakker is an actress, creator, and writer with a passion for microbiology. She works on mycological water purification projects, produces natural cider under the name “Anargist,” and collaborates with institutions such as VUB and VLIZ. Alongside Karolien de Bleser, she is developing a theater piece centered on microscopic organisms, and she is writing Microbial Memoirs at De Letteristen. Combining science and fiction, she delves into the origins of life and our earliest ancestors—bacteria.

Rafaella Houlstan-Hasaerts (architect) and Giulietta Laki (anthropologist) are co-founders of the action-research group Urban Species. Together with Natagora, Constant vzw & CVB they carried out specXcraft, a collaborative research project (funded by Innoviris/cocreate). Drawing on their respective practices and struggles for environmental- , social-, technological- and epistemological in/justice, they speculatively explored more situated, relevant and collective ways of imagining the future of Brussels.

Before moving to Brussels, where she works as an artist and researcher, Sara Manente studied dance and semiotics (University of Bologna, Madrid, and Antwerp). She has been part of a.pass since 2008, as participant in the postmaster programme and Research Center as well as curator and dedicated mentor. She’s been teaching at KASK, ISAC, ZUYD, DOCH and EXERCE. In 2021, she was artist in residence at Wiels. Her work is being supported by the Flemish Authorities and presented in Europe, South Corea and Brasil. In the last years, her projects explore the intersection of living cultures, fungi, and performing arts, using different formats to reflect on the contagion between pedagogy, research, performance, and publication. Drawing from the research project Wicked technology/Wild fermentation, she produced MOLD, a choreographic and sculptural work and ROT magazines and ROT Gardens, as editor and curator. Together with Sébastien Tripod and Deborah Robbiano, she realized RUINED, and TOWARDS A RUINED THEATER, a mycological building and degrading process that iterates in different architectures (EPFL Lausanne, Far Nyon, Nadine Brussels, kunstmuseum Bochum, VUB Pilar Brussels).

About the moderator:

The debate will be moderated by Theresa Spielmann, a doctoral student at the University of Antwerp and member of the ‘Performing Ends’ research project funded by the FWO (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek). Originally from Germany, they earned an MPhil in Theatre Studies from the University of Warwick. Previously, Theresa studied Theatre at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and worked as a theatre maker with the collective Büro Grandezza. They co-directed The 2051 Munich Climate Conference and edited its publication on climate change visions. Their background in both research and theatre informs their interdisciplinary doctoral work.

To register click here: https://www.billetweb.fr/curieucity-forest