Bubbles and open moments in Brussels-north and Schaarbeek.

Bubbles and open moments in Brussels-north and Schaarbeek.

In Brussels the north area and Schaarbeek in general stands out as a bubble on it's own, but when looking closer to the area surrounding our school we emediatly find smaller bubbles within the bubble. 

The first example we stumble upon just exiting the station, where we are confronted with the Brussels main red-light district "Rue D'Aarschot". Here you have people looking to solicitate aswell as people just passing by. These two groups never interact so in a way the public involved in the prostitution buisness form a bubble on their own.

Moving further along we come into the

"Rue de Brabant" which is sort of a shopping street mainly used by people with a foreign etnic origin and again there are outsiders passing by and maybe using one of the stores but rarely visiting this bubble just for the shopping possibilities that it offers, eventhough there are some pretty good bargains to be made. 

We come across squares like "Liedtsplein" were during the day there is a big variety of activities:

from the local grocery shop, a baker, a video renting store, a couple of lunch places and cafes to a hardware store. But again we notice that this square is almost exclusively used by the people living in the  neighbourghood.

 When arriving a the school, having crossed various bubbles, we come to the conclusion that both departements of Sint Lucas are the most separated bubbles of all! Not only are the people attending classes here forneign to the neighbourghood and it's inhabitants, to make in worse we litterly ban people who don't belong. We just arrive at the time we are supposed to be in school and leave emediatly afterwards not spending any or very few time in the area around the school, almost anxious to get away from there.

To conclude i have an example of what i think is an 'open moment/place' connecting a few of the bubbles found in the surroundings of our school.
The sandwich bar "Best Wandwiches" (probably well know by everyone studying at Sint Lucas) is for me the only place where almost every group of the area comes together. It is frequented by local inhabitants, students, kids of the local highschool and people working in the area. It's a place where everybody is welcome and is served with a smile.

Open moment: World festival Couleur Café

Couleur café is an every year festival in Brussels where different cultures come together. It is a world festival with different kinds of music on different stages. In between these stages you have food-stands, benches, (cocktail)bars,... Every food-stand is represented by another country. You see people from every nationality together for music from all over the world or just to have a good time. The stages, the food-stands,the people and all other things are like different bubbles coming together in an open culture festival. The different bubbles are also the different people (or groups) that are coming to the festival. You see people from all ages; from Brussels, Flanders or Wallonia or even further away all coming together for this 3 day festival in the heart of Brussels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgq40qiEm8U&feature=player_embedded#!

http://www.couleurcafe.be/

Open city moment Brussels

PLATFORM KANAL is a Brussels citizens' movement. The organization wishes to share information on creative forces in the central urban canal zone in order to increase their presence and visibility, as well as merging them with the local population’s potential. They have their own magazine,they organize workshops and they work together with architects and urban planners to gather information about the canal zone and to think about its future. Every two years the organization organizes 'Festival Kanal'. This creates a moment to investigate the possibilities,challenges and problems in the Brussels canal zone together with the people living there by mobilizing them in a positive way. The canal zone has to deal with a negative image in the city of Brussels and by symbolically 'making the bridge' with this arts- and cultural festival, the organization wants to turn this around and to show that these very lively neigborhoods in the canal zone have something to offer to the city. Often people refer to Molenbeek as a 'no go zone' and the organization turned this around by making it a 'must go zone' filled with artistic interventions and inviting the public to take a walk around the neighborhood to experience it. Here are some examples of urban installations and performances from the festival. CHECKPOINT CHARLIE (Emilio Lopez Menchero) is an identical copy of a checkpoint at the Berlin Wall. It questioned the canal as being a border (or a bridge?) for Brussels. The installation was set up by the social organization ART2WORK that gives the neighborhood youth a chance to have a work experience. It created a lot of discussion and that was exactly the purpose. BODIES IN URBAN SPACE (Cie. Willie Dorner)is the name of this amazing project. 20 dancers spread out in the streets of the old Molenbeek and in the neighborhood of the quays. This surprising parcours of acrobatic human sculptures was very popular with both the 'official' visitors of the festival and the casual passers-by. There were more than 20 other projects like these two in the festival. The festival was very successful, both the organization Platform Kanal an the neighborhoods were put on the map of Brussels. People were moving through streets they had never seen, made contact with others, got some new impressions and had a great time. The program made bridges between territoria, people and disciplines. I think it is clear why I consider this as an open city project. It gets all sorts of people out of their bubbles and mixes them together. Visitors from the city, locals, youth. It opens up the negatively connotated bubble 'Molenbeek' and shows the inner-city population that the canal shouldn't be considered a border for their bubble. Even the people that knew nothing about the festival being organized were involved, due to the installations that took place in their own street. What I like about it is that the organization works on this topic profoundly and that it is not just a one-time-thing. They work on the topic of the canal zone as a border on many, many levels. You can visit the organizations' website at http://www.platformkanal.be