Nuit Blanche: an unpredictable voyage

Over the last ten years, Nuit Blanche has become the pre-eminent contemporary arts event that engages in dialogue with Brussels’s public space. In this edition, a total of 31 projects and installations on the Sablon and in the Marolles emphasise the interaction between the city and its residents. The performers and artists are only mediators, but they penetrate your public, and occasionally even your private space to make you pay closer attention to the things you otherwise look past or through. Meet at the foot of the Palais de Justice on place Poelaert for a nightly and unpredictable voyage of discovery.

Up & Down
Léonore Frenois & Les Exclus

Who? Léonore Frenois, an artistic millipede who is also well-known as an actress, dancer, clown, and puppeteer, but also works as a psychiatric educator for people with autism and psychotics, but is directing a team of nine performers here.
What do you need to know about her? She was born and raised in the Marolles.
What is she doing at Nuit Blanche? In collaboration with Les Exclus, and her alumni of the Brussels Minor Academy, she is presenting a role-play. You could call it a social experiment that questions our perception: how we perceive others, and especially difference with others.
Where? In the iconic Marolles lift, which she has been using to commute from downtown to uptown for several years now, and which French artist Stéphane Masson has transformed into a giant aquarium for the occasion.
Extra info? Léonore Frenois: “The performers are between the people in the lift and in the passage leading to the lift. To them, every visitor to Nuit Blanche is a potential performer with whom they can have a conversation. The remarkable thing about the (real) performers is that they each represent a social group that is not part of Nuit Blanche’s target audience. But the difference will be subtle, it should take some time to discern who is a performer and who isn’t. The characters are ‘up’ or ‘down’, and are often on the margins of society. Because I work in psychiatry, I am trained to observe people. In waiting rooms, I like to guess what people do for a living or where they are from based on their posture. I am now extending that to street theatre, because real life is often more interesting as a play than imitated life in the theatre.”
20 > 0.00, Marolles lift, place Poelaertplein, Brussel/Bruxelles

Inside/OUT
Vincent Chenut & Alberto Ginepro

Who? Visual artist Vincent Chenut, currently resident artist at the Museum of Tapestry and Textile Arts in Tournai, and architect Alberto Ginepro, who doesn’t like sitting at a desk and thus gives architecture tours instead.
What do you need to know about them? They met as graffiti artists and won the Pause Publique together, a competition organised by the ISELP (Institut supérieur pour l’étude du langage plastique) to renew the Egmont park.
What are they doing at Nuit Blanche? Using a professional chalk marking machine, which is used to draw white lines on football fields, they drew two life-sized houses. Public and private space thus become one.
Where? In the beautiful Egmont park, located in the courtyard of a residential complex between Wolstraat/rue aux Laines and boulevard de Waterloolaan.
Extra info? Vincent Chenut: “Our starting point was: how can we make an artistic intervention here without leaving too many traces? We weren’t allowed to bring in anything heavy, make marks on the grass, or hang anything in the trees. So we first came up with football fields. They are fun and easy, and they spontaneously encourage visitors to interact: they can go to the kitchen, hang out in the living room, or take a rest in the bedroom.”
Alberto Ginepro: “Our installation will stay for two months. We can thus not only interact with the space, but also with time. By chalking the outline of a house instead of a football field, we aim to emphasise the contrast between inside and outside. We want visitors to think about what is public space and what isn’t.”
19 > 1.00, Egmont park, Wolstraat 32-34 rue aux Laines, Brussel/Bruxelles

Cruising For Art
Brian Lobel & Isabelle Bats

Who? Alliance between the Belgian performing artist and “burlesque terrorist” Isabelle Bats and the American performer Brian Lobel.
What do you need to know about them? They met for the performance Purge in which they let the audience decide who would remain their Facebook friends and who would be deleted.
What are they doing at Nuit Blanche? They and their friends-performers of all genders, ages, and sexual orientations will try to seduce you into a cruising session that may lead to an intimate assignation.
Where? The pick-up place is the dark alley tunnel under the tracks near the Kapellekerk/Église de la Chapelle railway station and Recyclart. After midnight, the seduction game will move to Les Brigitinnes.
Extra info? Isabelle Bats: “Anybody interested will be given a bandana. You then try to seduce other participants with your eyes, as you would at a bar. If that happens to be a performer and he or she likes you, they will do something special for you. That may happen in the public space, so that other people witness it, or the performer will take you to a secluded area for a quickie, either soft or more adventurous. Once you have accepted the bandana, there is a chance that someone will touch you or that you meet someone who tries to manipulate you. We cannot guarantee that everyone will encounter a performer, but that needn’t stop the participants from creating their own performance. We play with the potential danger, but also the potential sensuality of these unpredictable encounters in an anonymous, night-time no man’s land with slightly tipsy people and Peeping Toms.”
21.00 > 0.00, Recyclart, 1 > 3.00, Les Brigittines, Brussel/Bruxelles

Photos © Saskia Vanderstichele


NUIT BLANCHE • 5/10, 19 > 5.00, gratis/gratuit/free, VERSCHILLENDE LOCATIES/DIVERS LIEUX/VARIOUS LOCATIONS, nuitblanchebrussels.be