For its 25th anniversary, BNA-BBOT is toasting Brussels, its stories, its people, its history and its future. For the occasion, artists and DJs will take over our audio archives and transform them into installations or dance sessions. Together, on June 14 at the beursschouwburg, let's make Brussels sound!

Programme du 14 juin au beursschouwburg

21h : SAGAT (live)
Wiet Lengeler présente une œuvre vidéo qui explore les liens entre l'enregistrement, l'archivage, la mémoire et l'imagination. Par le biais du jeu, de la synthèse vidéo et de l'I.A., il crée une installation basée sur l'archéologie des médias d’une part et sur des processus stochastiques d’autre part. En essayant de former des images et des sons à partir de trouvailles aléatoires dans les archives sonores de BNA-BBOT, l'installation devient une métaphore de la manière dont l'I.A. contemporaine traite les données.

22h : Les Microsondes (dj)
Quand les archives sonores de BNA-BBOT se glissent sur les platines des Microsondes... À l'occasion de ce grand anniversaire, le collectif de podcasteuses transforme les récits qu'elles ont glanés ces dernières années en un DJ set un pEu bAvaRd : préparez-vous à vous enjailler aux sons des mots de Bruxelles. Ça va ksaar vanavond !

23h : Roberta Miss (dj)
Roberta Miss, alias Nur/se, naviguera à travers des univers sonores aussi divers que la techno, la bass music, la voix et le field recording. En explorant des dynamiques d’écoute et des territoires narratifs variés, elle puisera dans les enregistrements de manifestations et de luttes de la Brussels Sound Map de BNA-BBOT pour convoquer sur le dancefloor des chants, des bruits de foule, des slogans, des fanfares mais aussi des moments de tension et de solidarité.

00h : Rokia Bamba (dj)

Puisant dans les archives sonores de BNA-BBOT, ce DJ set vibrant fait pulser l’amour à travers les voix et bruits de Bruxelles. Une performance où chaque beat devient une déclaration, entre mémoire urbaine et émotion collective.

01h : Où est-ce pe n’este? (dj)

Où est-ce pe n’este? (pronounce 'Wespennest') is a Brussels-based dj-duo (Flor Verdegem & Omar Hobo) serving stingy mixes of où a t’èveur deille file l’aïque playing. Driven by a nonsensical question with no answer, they are on a never ending quest through the local/global underground, mainstream & everything in between. They enjoy adapting their sets to the mood of the occasion (be it at a pub, a poetry festival or a rave), but always keep it playful and eclectic.

17h-17h30, 18h30-19h, 20h-20h30 : SHADOW AND DUST (peau d'archive/langzaam licht) / Troubled Archives

There is a rumble in archive land. Photographs are emanating sounds. Do these vibrations have transformative power?

TROUBLED ARCHIVES invites Moise Ilunga to interpret the sounds of colonial photography and resilience.

17h-02h (non stop) : UN ANNIVERSAIRE POTENTIEL / BNA-BBOT

Cette installation présente une esquisse visuelle et auditive de Bruxelles au travers d’une sélection de témoignages, de souvenirs et de sons collectés dans le cadre du projet Bruxelles Nous Appartient-Brussel Behoort Ons Toe au cours de la période 1999-2025.

A listening tour of Brussels cafés

Every last Sunday of the month, from 5.30PM to 6.30PM, we meet in a café in one of Brussels’ communes for a themed audio listening session: personal accounts, neighbourhood stories, anecdotes and imaginations for the city’s future… 1000 Brussels residents tell the story of their city and create more US.

Listening Tour #3: OLEGARIO, Willem Tellstraat 2, 1060 Sint-Gillis.

Theme: Football.

Free admission, 1 free drink.

How does public space in Brussels reflect our gender-specific assignations and positions?

Under what conditions and for what reasons is a space perceived as safe or hostile for women, trans, queer and non-binary people? 

Between stratefies of visibility and invisibility, what are our daily gestures of resistance and emancipation in the street and with others? And our queer gestures? 

Is Brussels a queer city?

A participatory sound art project for Brussels' public space, initiated by Anna Raimondo with the voices of Gaia, Ophélie Mac Coco, Agathe Yamina, Laura Nsengiyumva, Aïda Yancy, L.K, Quinn, Anniek Schalij, Marian Lens, Ansao Totolehibe. 

With the support of Anais Maes, Alderwoman for Urban Planning and the College of Mayor, Aldermen and Alderwomen of the City of Brussels.

Q(ee)R Codes – New Boundaries BXL 1000 is part of a long-term nomadic art project initiated by artist Anna Raimondo in 2017. In Brussels, following the BXL Universel II – Multipli.city project at Centrale for contemporary art in 2021, the project will be continued from 2025 to 2030, thanks to a commission from the City of Brussels and the alliance of several people and institutional and associative partners.

The project questions the experiences of women, trans, queer and non-binary people in their cities. Coming from a variety of geographical, cultural, generational, social and sexual backgrounds, the people the artist met were invited to take part in discussions and audio interviews with her. They recount and describe the spaces in the centre of Brussels that are most significant to them, sharing the sensations produced by these places, their stories, their memories and the projections that nourish them. 

Through listening and oral research on the one hand, and the creation of new spaces for imagination, confrontation and dialogue on the other, Q(ee)R Codes – New Boundaries BXL 1000 is intended to be a platform for reflection to tell and reimagine the place of women – understood in a broad, non-biological sense – and gender minorities in public space. 

The result is the production of 10 sound portraits, scattered around the city centre of Brussels, the locations of which are shown on the map available to the public. In each location, you‘ll find a QR code, appearing as a marble mosaic, that will allow you to listen to each audio.

The title, Q(ee)R Codes, intentionally omits the letter ‘u’ from the word ‘queer’ to escape grammar and its norms, while its pronunciation indicates the tool for listening to the sounds. 

Q(ee)R Codes also evokes the gestures that have emerged during certain encounters. These are hand gestures that resist a fixed codification and which, in their particularity and the context in which they are received, open up a wealth of symbolism. They are reproduced in five of the ten locations.

The project thus offers a map of Brussels 1000 mediated by voices, bodies and subjectivities intended as a call to listen, and as a moment of potential empathy with the voice we hear.

Concept and artistic direction: Anna Raimondo

Interviews, recordings, editing and realization: Anna Raimondo

Editing of the Flemish stories with: Ruby Bernabeu-Plous (BNA-BBOT)

Additional recordings: Flavien Gillié (BNA-BBOT), Anne Lepère

Sound mixing: Flavien Gillié (BNA-BBOT)

Graphics and illustration: Marzia Dalfini

Jingle music: David Chazam

Jingle voices: Ruby Bernabeu-Plous (BNA-BBOT), Loes Jacobs, Anna Raimondo

Creation of the marble tiles: Mosaici Moruzzi

Head of production and communications: Dounia Mojahid

Production: Moussem Nomadic Arts Centre 

with contribution from: nadine, Sveva Ventre, Romane Beau, Yanis Stefanou

Translation in Dutch: Loes Jacobs

Translation in English: Sarah Cale

Menstruositées, an exhibition that tells and presents the stories, things and practices associated with menstruation.

The Menstruositées exhibition project aims to respond to the lack of visibility of the phenomenon of menstruation and to restore menstruation to its rightful place in our lives and in the public arena. The exhibition features the stories and everyday experiences of menstruating people, helping to raise awareness and empower people to take action. The content on display is the result of encounters and personal accounts, workshops and discussions.

• The exhibition can be viewed in the window every day from 4 to 27 March.
• Free admission to the exhibition from 4 to 27 March, Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm (times may vary depending on the presence of the BNA-BBOT team).
• Writing workshops: Based on their menstrual experiences and some fun writing instructions, participants are invited to imagine real menstruation-related words and their definitions. These are the words we need, to express the experience as it is, to make the invisible visible.

Workshop #1 on Thursday 13 from 12pm to 2pm
Workshop #2 on Thursday 13 from 6pm to 8pm

Free, register by sending an email to alice@luc-lab.com

For both workshops, you are welcome to bring your own lunch, with drinks provided.

• Guided tours in the presence of the Menstruositées team on Friday 14 from 6pm to 9pm + festive aperitif to celebrate the exhibition as part of Women's Rights Week.
• Finissage on Thursday 27 March from 6pm to 10pm

With the support of the City of Brussels, as part of the Women's Rights Week 2025 call for projects.

A listening tour of Brussels cafés

Every last Sunday of the month, from 5.30PM to 6.30PM, we meet in a café in one of Brussels’ communes for a themed audio listening session: personal accounts, neighbourhood stories, anecdotes and imaginations for the city’s future… 1000 Brussels residents tell the story of their city and create more US.

Listening Tour #2: LES GRANDS CARMES, Grands Carmes street 20-22, 1000 Brussels

Theme: Mobility & sense of security.

Free admission, 1 free drink.

Workshop: Listening to images

What does a photograph sound like?

Sign up for this workshop where we will ‘listen’ to archived photographs from the colonial era. The aim is to take a fresh look at these images, contextualise them and integrate them into the hero.inn.e collection, which is designed for the future.

With a dose of introspection, a sensitive approach and speculative methods inspired by Tina Campt's book Listening to Images, we will collectively explore the contextual data. We will also use imaginative practices (inspired by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay) and meditation (after Resmaa Menakem).

8 participants per workshop

Wednesday 19 February 16.00 - 19.00  (CANCELED) OR
Thursday 27 February 16.00 - 19.00

Send an email with your motivation to info@bna-bbot.be to register!