ENCORE

ENCORE is a project initiated in Brussels by Moussa Cheniguel.

Before founding ENCORE, Moussa was an artist and curator. He directed Espace Moss, a performative space where people came to experience a haircut at the heart of an artwork.

ENCORE was born from an observation. Many organizations exist to support people with disabilities, but there is a lack of spaces to live — not only to be taken care of.

The project proposes a space to regain the capacity to act with one's body, to make visible presences that are often ignored, and to shift the way disability is perceived.

ENCORE unfolds through several complementary dimensions: neuro-fitness, publications around crip culture, and concrete initiatives such as a café where people with disabilities can work, exchange and meet.

On March 6 and 7, ENCORE is invited to the Kaaitheater.

The guiding thread of this invitation runs through the entire project: presence and absence, visibility and invisibility.

Part of the project unfolds in the theatre's garage. This choice is deliberate.

For many people with disabilities, the main entrance is not the one they use. They pass through technical access points, through the back, through the sides. The garage becomes a necessary passage.

To occupy it is to reverse the logic. What is relegated becomes central. What is functional becomes a place of attention.

The garage is no longer a space of transit. It becomes a space of presence. Works integrated into the site as almost functional elements contribute to this tension between what is seen and what blends into the background.

The space will be activated by a coffee bar conceived as an installation, by baristas with disabilities, by photographic, video and sound presences, as well as by readings and talks.

Programme:

Friday 6 March:

10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.: Coffee bar and installation, with artworks by Laetitia Bica, sound installation by Mira Thompson, film by Zebraneuro Fish and CRIP Zines Library by Speaking Volumes

11 a.m.-4 p.m.: Film On pain worth sharing and On access intimacy by Mira Thompson and Carly Everaert, in loop, 45 min.

2 p.m.-4 p.m.: Collective reading with Loraine Furter as part of the CRIP Zines Library.

Saturday 7 March:

10.30am- 5pm: Coffee bar and installation, with artworks by Laetitia Bica, sound installation by Mira Thompson, film by Zebrafish Neuro and CRIP Zines Library by Speaking Volumes

11 a.m.-5 p.m.: Film On pain worth sharing and On access intimacy by Mira Thompson and Carly Everaert, in loop, 45 min.

4 p.m.-6 p.m.: Collective lecture with Loraine Furter as part of the CRIP Zines Library and Speaking Volumes.

8pm-9pm: »SCORES THAT SHAPED OUR FRIENDSHIP«, film by Lucy Wilke and Paweł Duduś, 60 min.

9pm: Post-screening discussion with Moussa Cheniguel and Maria Dogahe

Check this page regularly for updates!

Moussa Cheniguel (1980) is an artist and curator, and the founder of ENCORE. He founded and ran Espace Moss, an immersive art space in Brussels that combined in-situ installations and performances. Since a spinal cord injury in 2020, he created ENCORE at the intersection of curatorial practice and rehabilitation: hybrid spaces that touch on neuro-fitness, writing, and community.