In the Belly of the City is an artistic platform and a call to action to reconsider our food systems and the interdependencies that shape them. Realized by artist collective Futurefarmers during a residency hosted by GLUON, this project transforms the Brussels-Charleroi canal into a conduit for system change. As a functioning transport vessel, it moves food from a network of peasant farmers in the hinterland of Brussels (Pajottenland) into the belly of the European Capital city of Brussels, it brings small-scale, local farmers into contact with the global flow of goods and foreign trade.
Amidst the already present theater of the canal, a rassemblement of farmers, seeds, artists, soil, the canal, poets, electromagnetic frequencies, solar energy, architects and techno-disobedients form the scene of a series of actions. Moving upon an unconventional, wooden canal boat in intimate relation, this constellation enables new imaginaries – through a slow, reflective process of repair, resilience and reflection on our habits of agri-cultural production.
In the Belly… is shifting local food transport from diesel trucks to water transport, using the existing infrastructure of the Brussels-Charleroi canal. Tijs Boelens, lead farmer at Degroentelaar farm, coordinates produce from twelve farms to be transported from Halle to Brussels twice per week. Once in the city, the food is sorted, packed and delivered by bike, making its way to cooperative stores and collective kitchens.
The first season kicks off at the I Love Science Festival by Innoviris in Brussels from October 11-13, featuring a program of food deliveries, workshops, performances, artworks, and debates. The platform will connect cultural and artistic production with local food systems, bringing these themes to the forefront of the festival – check out the full program below!
PROGRAM
FRIDAY 11 OCTOBER
17:00 – 18:15 Screening short films The Sower of Red by Tim Volckaert and For the price of a goat by Els Dietvorst
In Volckaert’s short movie The Sower of Red we see the artist literally sowing the color (pigment) red as a poetic action against land that must be sacrificed and disappear for industrialization. In the film, which is presented in loop, we hear the music of the French composer of Italian birth Jean-Baptiste Lully (17th Century), who is considered a master of the French Baroque music style: Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs.
For the price of a goat is a documentary about the life of Luigi, who tends sheep and goats on the banks of the Brussels-Charleroi Canal. Luigi’s life is a counter-symbol for today’s communication and consumption society.
18:15 – 21:00 Performance Algae Diplomacy by Filip Van Dingenen and Hélène Meyer
Filip Van Dingenen is a multidisciplinary artist and co-founder of the Ecole Mondiale in Brussels. He works extensively with zoological, botanical and ethnographic issues. And in his process-based art practice he uses a wide range of different methods and outcomes that merge participatory strategies with social and ecological relevance, between hobby and pedagogy. Hélène Meyer is an artist based in Brussels, Belgium. She studied painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, graduated in 2016.
18:00 – 18:45 Keynote “Sitopia: How food can save the world“
by Carolyn Steel
Carolyn Steel, architect and the acclaimed author of Hungry Cities and Sitopia, will deliver the keynote lecture at our event. Carolyn’s work explores the profound impact of food on our bodies, habits, homes, cities, landscapes and climate. She reminds us that food is the great connector, influencing every aspect of our lives in ways we often overlook. By learning to truly value food and understand its role in our world, Carolyn believes it has the potential to transform our lives and create a better world.
19:00 – 21:00 Waterways, sound performance by Caroline Profanter
A collection of recorded sounds documents the cycles and interactions between a moving vessel, a liquid body, and living entities, connecting places from city to farm, harvest to market. Sounds are captured above and below water, tracing food production, trade, and transport. This archive of frequencies will be mapped onto a multi-channel installation on a boat, carried by the canal. It’s a composition of voices, tones, textures, and drones, reflecting the echoes and resonances of underwater sounds from Brussels, merging with the space, materials, and objects.
19:00 – 21:00 Debate on Infrastructures & Imaginaries of a New Agri-Cultural Commons with Barbara Van Dyck, Pascal Gielen, Tijs Boelens, Philippe Barette, Lotte Stoops, Koen Berghmans and Sandrine Vokaer
Infrastructures define society, they define where you go and where you don’t go. In the Belly: Infrastructures and Imaginaries of a New Agri-Cultural Commons is a gathering of Brussels’ inhabitants, farmers, activists, food cooperatives, academics, and policy makers to imagine new infrastructures of mobility to intensify and support agroecological production in Brussels and its surrounding areas – a model that respects humans and other species, regenerates biodiversity and creates a just economy. This calls for a total transformation of the outlook of agricultural systems and the interdependencies that shape them.
21:00 – 23:00 Film screening O Horizon by the Otolith Group
O Horizon (2018) emerges from The Otolith Group’s long-standing research interest in Rabindranath Tagore and his founding of Visva-Bharati, a school in Santiniketan, India, which similarly to the Bauhaus was meant to be a living laboratory and an experiment in art, life, and craft. The title of the film refers to the surface layer of soil, changed in the area around Santiniketan as the result of Tagore’s introduction of new flora in development of the campus. The film extends The Otolith Group’s ongoing consideration of the Anthropocene, a premise that denotes that the current geological age is one wherein human activity spurs the primary changes on climate and the environment.
21:00 – 23:00 Wine tasting by Kurt Ryslavy
Kurt Ryslavy is an Austrian conceptual artist, poet and wine merchant, living in Brussels. His activities as a wine merchant are an inspiration for his artistic and poetic practice. His works of art, les Factures Décoratives, are painted invoices, showing the customer’s TVA, bank account number, and the number and the types of wines delivered. Kurt Ryslavy does not shy away from tick layers of paint for his paintings, which are sometimes created during a performance. What is special is that Kurt Ryslvay knows every story about the wines he serves and sells.
SATURDAY 12 OCTOBER
12:00 – 13:00 Procession “A Movement with Apples” by Futurefarmers
A Movement of Apples invokes a chain of people to move a mountain of apples brought by boat from farmers in the Pajottenland. The apples are passed from hand to hand starting at Tour and Taxis and will end at Groot Eiland where the apples will be transformed into compote for people to take home. This performance is a call to action for Brussels’ inhabitants and policy makers to explore and demonstrate alternative modes of food transportation from the countryside to the city.
15:00 – 17:00 Performance Algae Diplomacy by Filip Van Dingenen and Hélène Meyer
15:00 – 17:00 Film screening O Horizon by The Otolith Group
17:30 – 19:30 Film screening An Island & One Night by Pirates des Lentillère
An Island and a Night is a fictional film made collectively over the last two years by the residents and users of the Quartier Libre des Lentillères, a self-managed place extending over the last market gardening lands of the city of Dijon. Around the fire, travelers and pirates tell each other their memories, their dreams, their battles. Until dawn, a thousand and one paths emerge on this imaginary but very real island. These 8 hectares have been occupied and brought back into cultivation for 13 years, in resistance to a concrete “ecocity” project that still threatens them today.
