FESTIVAL KANAL 2012

Discovery Channel

One thing you can’t say about Brussels is that it is a waterside city. And yet the future of Brussels lies on a waterway: not a beautiful wide river but a canal built by human hands. The average age of the population in the Brussels Capital Region is already very young, but the neighbourhoods adjacent to this canal form an ‘extra young zone’. However, with an otherwise aging population this asset brings little benefit to the canal zone. The media coverage of young people from Molenbeek and Anderlecht mainly paints a picture of a ‘no go area’. The Festival Kanal aims to change this image: the canal zone as the new city centre, as a large urban public space, as a bridge between cultures and peoples, as a crossroads of many roads, as a ‘place to be’, as a ‘must-go zone’. With a comprehensive programme of artistic interventions in the public space, Festival Kanal is a unique opportunity to (re)discover this fascinating neighbourhood. Here, to whet your appetite, are some of the projects.

Festival Kanal in association with Kaaitheater, La Raffinerie/Charleroi Danses, Met-X, Maison des Cultures/Huis van Culturen, Architecture Workroom Brussels, Het Beschrijf, I-MAL, Wiels, Platform Kanal, MJ Chicago, Lezarts Urbains a.o.