And we're LIVE!

KANAL – LIVE ARTS (DECEMBER 2026 – JUNE 2027)

 

 

Kanal-Centre Pompidou does not simply open its doors; it asks what it means to open a museum today. Conceived as an extension of the city, the museum combines exhibition spaces with more than 20 000 m2 of freely accessible public space, creating new possibilities for encounters between art, artists, audiences and urban life. The opening of Kanal is therefore not understood as a single ceremonial moment but as an ongoing process: an invitation to gather, experiment, imagine and collectively shape what a museum can become. Live arts occupy a central place within this vision. Bringing together performance, choreography, sound, visual arts and participatory practice, the programme approaches the museum as a living environment rather than a fixed institution. Throughout the first season, artists activate the building, its public spaces and its relationship to Brussels through projects that question how we inhabit shared spaces, how we relate to one another, and how artistic practices can generate new forms of public life. 

Three major strands structure the season: Hybrid Forms between Exhibition and Live Arts, Protocols for Opening a Museum, and Participatory Practices. Alongside these strands, a number of key presentations, festivals and partnerships expand the programme and underline Kanal-Centre Pompidou’s commitment to international exchange, experimentation and dialogue. 

 

 

One of the defining characteristics of Kanal-Centre Pompidou’s Live Arts programme is its commitment to artistic practices that move beyond conventional disciplinary boundaries. Several projects unfold simultaneously as exhibitions, performances and durational experiences, inviting audiences to encounter artworks over time rather than through a single event. The season includes Ula Sickle’s A Choreographic Exhibition, exploring the circulation of movement, memory and embodied knowledge through a vocabulary of gestures. Miet Warlop’s IT NEVER SSST, following its presentation at the Belgian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, transforms performance into an immersive sculptural environment. Instruments Room by Ictus proposes a space where listening, rehearsal, performance and exhibition coexist, while 7 Walks (Salon Monplaisir) by Katleen Vermeir & Ronny Heiremans explore alternative ways of experiencing time, space and collective attention. A particularly direct encounter between exhibition and performance is offered by NO SHOW, the exhibition by Deborah Bowmann, Maoupa Mazzocchetti and twenty Brussels-based artists. Rather than remaining a static exhibition, NO SHOW is activated over five weekends in December and January through live interventions and performative actions by the participating artists. Together, these works position the museum as a place where exhibitions can perform and performances can inhabit space over extended periods, creating new relationships between spectatorship, presence and participation. 

 

 

The most emblematic strand of the opening season is Protocols for opening the museum, a three-year artistic inquiry developed specifically for Kanal’s public spaces. Rather than treating the opening of a museum as a finished achievement, the project asks a series of questions: How does a museum open? What makes it welcoming? How does it become public? 

The first chapter, How to Open, unfolds throughout the inaugural year and brings together artists who respond to the challenges and possibilities of creating a genuinely public cultural institution. Their proposals range from performances and sound works to architectural interventions, films and participatory encounters. The participating artists for this first inquiry include Sharon Hayes, Valentina Magaletti, Ei Arakawa-Nash, Apparatus 22, Sarah Smolders, Hans Haacke, Ingel Vaikla, David Weber-Krebs and Alexander Schellow. Sharon Hayes presents CRI CRI CLAP ROARRRR, a new performance that transforms megaphones into instruments for collective speech and political imagination. Valentina Magaletti’s RESPIRIA! reimagines the Belgian national anthem as a collective breathing ritual, while Ei Arakawa-Nash’s Does This Kanal Taste Ambivalent? turns the museum’s drinking fountains into an experiment about perception, trust and public space. Artists David Weber-Krebs and Alexander Schellow have developed a series of audio guides with instructions for how to experience the museum not as a finished institution, but as a place in the process of becoming public. Apparatus 22 launches A Museum Lover Has Questions, a long-term project that approaches the museum through curiosity, speculation and critique, while Sarah Smolders creates a monumental site-specific work that extends across 145 steel columns throughout the building. Together these projects establish the museum itself as a subject of artistic inquiry, proposing publicness not as a fixed condition but as something that must continually be rehearsed, negotiated and reinvented. 

 

 

Participation is another cornerstone of Kanal-Centre Pompidou’s Live Arts programme. Rather than positioning audiences as passive observers, many projects invite visitors to become active contributors, collaborators and co-creators. At the heart of this strand is BILDYin & Urban Ritual, developed by Einat Tuchman and the BILDY collective. Evolving from a long-term neighbourhood project in Molenbeek, BILDYin transforms part of the museum into a place for workshops, performances, discussions, shared meals and collective learning, culminating in the large-scale participatory performance, Urban Ritual.

Other participatory projects include Andrew Graham’s Bal BRUT, an inclusive social dance event; Anna Rispoli and La Candidate Sans-Papiers, who explore citizenship, representation and democratic participation; Seppe Baeyens’ Kosmos, a co-production with KVS developed through collective choreographic processes; and Claire Croizé’s The Round, a choreographic work created with children from across Brussels following an extensive series of workshops. Across these projects, participation is understood not as a supplementary activity but as an artistic methodology that foregrounds care, encounter and civic imagination. 

 

 

Several key projects shape the season beyond the above-mentioned strands, highlighting Kanal-Centre Pompidou’s commitment to international collaboration, artistic experimentation and critical engagement with contemporary society. A major highlight is the Brussels debut of Norwegian Jamaican choreographer Harald Beharie, whose acclaimed Trilogy— Batty Bwoy, Undersang and Sweet Spot — is presented in its entirety for the first time. Across three works unfolding over several days and in different locations in and around the museum, Beharie explores queerness, vulnerability, belonging and transformation through choreography, sculpture, sound and ritual. The season is further enriched through a number of strategic partnerships. A central place is occupied by 25AV, the pan-European platform for experimental audiovisual and performance art practices, developed in collaboration with Kiosk Radio. Over two days, artists and audiences gather at Kanal-Centre Pompidou for performances, concerts and listening experiences, culminating each evening in a new performative work by the Lithuanian artist duo Pakui Hardware and composer Miša Skalskis, created in partnership with AUDRA Festival and Kanal, in the frameworkof the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union’s 2027 Socio-Cultural Programme. The season also engages directly with urgent political questions through Figures of Fascism and Anti-fascist Solidarities, two study days convened by dramaturg and theorist Bojana Cvejić that will examine contemporary forms of authoritarianism, resistance and collective action, positioning artistic practice as a space for civic reflection and democratic debate. Finally, Kanal-Centre Pompidou’s continues its commitment to international exchange through partnerships with leading festivals. TROUBLE #14 brings together artists including Wathiq Al-Ameri, Tania El Khoury, Parsa Kamehkhosh, Kubra Khademi, Xiao Lu, Christophe Meierhans, Mélanie Peduzzi, Robin Pourbaix, Gwendoline Robin, Raeda Saadeh and Habitant.es des Images, while a co-production with Kunstenfestivaldesarts supports a new work by choreographer Jeremy Nedd. 

 

 

28–29.11.2026: Sharon Hayes – CRI CRI CLAP ROARRRR

28–29.11.2026: Valentina Magaletti – RESPIRIA!

28.11.2026: Apparatus 22 – A Museum Lover Has Questions

28.11.2026–27.11.2027: Ei Arakawa-Nash – Does This Kanal Taste Ambivalent?

28.11.2026–ongoing: Sarah Smolders — Site-specific artwork

14.01–30.06.2027: David Weber-Krebs en Alexander Schellow – Zero Horizon

28.11.2026–27.11.2027: Hans Haacke – Visitor Poll

Curators: Guy Gypens, Head of live arts, and Eliel Jones, Curator, performance and time-based media 

Press officer: David Salomonowicz dsalomonowicz@kanal.brussels