Culture beat – September 26

If you’re a cinema fan, take advantage of the last few days of BNP Fortis Paribas Film Days. Until Saturday you can watch a movie for €4 in cinemas around the country. The programme of screenings includes premieres and newly-released films.

After only two years, the Bozar Electronic Arts Festival has earned itself a serious reputation in the expanding world of digital arts. The third edition, until Sunday, focuses on the avant-garde of installation art and sound design. Performances, workshops and conferences explore the many facets of this discipline. Headlining acts include Nils Frahm, Ben Frost, Mondkopf and Fuck Buttons.

After Lady Gaga, the Grand‘Place is pimping itself for the Federation Wallonia-Brussels annual free party on Saturday evening. The main draw is a line-up of concerts by local musicians Calogero, Benabar, Antoine Chance, Noa Moon, Roberto Bellarosa and Indila. They will also be broadcast live on RTBF’s La Une. A firework display follows at 23.00 along the banks of the canal at Porte de Flandre. The programme also offers a fashion show, film screenings and other concerts across Brussels and Wallonia. September 27 is celebrated in the two regions in honour of the retreat of Dutch troops in 1830, which marked the independence of Belgium.

All weekend, the Woluwe-Saint-Lambert arts centre Wolubilis hosts the street theatre festival les Fêtes Romanes. Around 50 shows, from home and abroad, are staged on the esplanade: concerts, choreographies, and performances all day long, running from 15 minutes to one hour. On Saturday evening Compagnie de l’Homme Debout presents its giant puppet show Venus for the first time in Belgium. There are alsos workshops and activities for all ages.

Among the many new exhibitions that opened this week, one that caught my attention was Mark Leckey: Lending Enchantment to Vulgar Materials at Wiels. The a retrospective of the British artist and 2008 Turner prize winner is his largest exhibition to date, as he shows new and older work in a variety of medium: sculpture, sound, performance and video. It includes the iconic work, Fiorucci made me Hardcore (1999), a study of popular dance culture in the UK, and new projects such as an artist-curated exhibition within the exhibition, all exploring the power and influence of popular culture. The show accompanies Wiels’ other major opening exhibition of the season, Echolalia, by Belgian visual artist Ana Torfs.

British nurse Edith Cavell was executed in Brussels in 1915 for assisting Allied soldiers to escape occupied Belgium. As the anniversary of her death approaches, numerous events are marking the occasion. A commemorative discussion, Belgium Occupation and Resistance, at the British School of Brussels in Tervuren on September 30, is organised in collaboration with Waterstone’s bookshop. Historians Marijke Van Campenhout and Emmanuel Debruyne join Cavell biographer Diana Souhami to discuss her role in both local nursing and the war. Souhami’s account of the life of Edith Cavell (pictured) is a detailed and fascinating portrait of a selfless woman who played a pioneering role in founding the nursing profession in Belgium. Cavell came to Brussels to supervise a new school for nursing. When war broke out, her deep sense of responsibility ultimately led to her death, which proved to be a massive propaganda advantage for the Allies.

The slow food movement is less than tardy in winning over fans as proved in this 7th edition of the Brussels gastronomic event, Slow Food Brussels, from October 3 to 5, in several locations. ‘Fresh and local is best’ is the tag line as 42 restaurants present their sustainable menus. Discover the first Belgian Presidia products — raw milk Herve cheese and Aubel syrup — after attending a workshop or a cooking course. The weekend event launches the annual Goûter Bruxelles (Taste Brussels).

Across Brussels on Saturday October 4, the 12th edition of Nuit Blanche is ready to entertain long into the night – and all for free. Inspired by similar events in Montreal, Amsterdam and Paris, each year a different Brussels neighbourhood is selected as the backdrop to a white night of contemporary artistic intervention in urban space, involving over a hundred artists and tens of thousands of spectators. This twelfth edition takes place downtown, around the Bourse. The theme is cinema and special guest artists include Brussels-born director Martine Doyen, whose installation Present Perfect takes the viewer on an experimental ‘video-walk’ of secret Brussels. Alternatively, immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the 1920s as a film extra in Where is Mr Gatsby? set in the suitably period setting of Hôtel Métropole.