Program

Brussels is much more than the often gloomy picture that the media paints. Cactus Brussels and Architecture Workroom Brussels lets you discover hopeful places in the city by bike. Find inspiration in innovative interpretation of public space, sustainable climate solutions and local food production and meet the committed people behind these initiatives.

Guided by: Gids Brukselbinnenstebuiten, Roeland Dudal (AWB) and Philippe Renders (Cactus Brussel à vélo)

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Get to know the hidden faces of Brussels’ inner city. On this guided walk, trees tell us of their deepest secrets. You will find out about local micro-ecology and spontaneous wild plants in the city’s quarries. How they are edible and have medicinal and ecological functions, and more. The soil and plants tell the city’s hidden story.

Bring clothing suitable for the weather and, if you want, a magnifying glass and something to write with.

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The Club of Rome’s published its first alarming report in 1972. How can it be that, exactly 50 years later, the leaves were falling from the trees already in August given everything we knew back then?
How do we form our understanding of the climate and how is it translated politically? What role does media play?

What role can we play ourselves? Do we want to immerse ourselves in climate knowledge? Perhaps we would rather ignore the frightening facts?

A conversation about climate knowledge and action, or rather lack of action.

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The rule of law is essential for a new relationship between man and nature, strong protections for nature and decisive environmental policies. We have seen this in many countries where ecosystems have been given legal status. Or when people have resorted to legal action to force their government to keep climate promises.

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Various forms of exploitation plague the fashion industry. Fast fashion creates enormous mountains of waste that put massive strains on the planet. The working conditions of textile workers are remain beyond the pale.

How do we take action against this injustice? How can it be different?

With Sarah Vandoorne (author Wardrobe Fasting).

The conversation will be moderated by Caroline Van Peteghem (The Transformists).

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Make reusable food wraps with beeswax or create your own totebag with leftover fabric. The Sewing Workshop of Molenbeek-based non-profit organisation De Welvaartkapoen helps you reduce your ecological footprint.

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Screen-print ‘Hope is Action’ on your own T-shirt, jumper or on the totebag you made in the sewing studio. Scheefdruk, the screen printing studio of youth house SOJO from Kessel-Lo, will help you do just that.

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Are you looking for tips on what to read? Hungry for more knowledge about the climate? Or are you looking for emotional inspiration from nature? Fancy some exciting climate fiction?

Come along to the Marathon of Reading Experience and get inspired by what others are reading. The participants talk about books that left a special impression and why. All the books presented are about a fair world and future.

Have you also read a (climate) book that was truly inspiring? Sign up and share your experience too!

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Do you have an urgent question about the climate crisis? Is the topic, for example the causes and consequences of the climate crisis, new to you? Or are you looking to deepen your knowledge?

At the climate desk, climate scientists answer all your questions.

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Rather than simply looking on dejectedly, many are rebelling. They denounce lack of incisive socio-environmental policies in many different ways. Inequality is rising and we can see climate disruption emerging.

Taking the government to court, street actions and demonstrations, blocking roads or shops… or actively seeking a different outlook on the world. Resistance versus governments that want to criminalise resistance. They want to silence any critical voices, when it is them that are the oxygen of democracy. Resistance is needed like never before.

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Moddertong is a kaleidoscopic narrative that evokes the everyday life of a community in an unspecified time and place. Everything is magically connected: the sun, plants and animals, people and man-made things.
In Moddertong, a narrator sits with the audience in a circle. Gradually, a tragicomedy unfolds in which countless creatures support and thwart each other.
Sébastien Hendrickx worked for several years on this performance, which relates to the concepts of ‘mother’, ‘language’ and ‘earth’. Under the influence of continuous research and constantly changing circumstances, Moddertong takes on ever-changing forms.

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What if we organised basic needs like energy collectively? Together, we strive for an accessible, democratically organised and sustainable energy supply for all.

Explore the potential of projects where citizens work together and form an energy community.

Sofie van Bruystegem of City Mine(d) engages in conversation with moderator Amina Trigui (The Transformists).

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A biologist, alone, in largely unexplored territory. armed with a fascination with fungi, octopuses, and ecosystems, she quickly finds her defenses falter against the immensity of the preternatural forces that she encounters on her expedition. the more she doesn’t know, the more infected she becomes. until we are one.

concept & performance: flora van canneyt | concept & performance: flora van canneyt | text: flora van canneyt & ans van gasse (adapted from annihilation by jeff vandermeer) | coach: atta nasser | sound design: simon weyts | direction technique: tuur decoene & jarno claeys 

After the first performance there will be a post-talk – ‘facts in fiction’ – on climate fiction with Mahlu Mertens from 16.45 to 17.30.

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Some minerals are geopolitically ‘hot’. States and companies are outdoing each other to secure supplies of raw materials for green technologies such as batteries, solar panels and wind turbines. With the scarcity of raw materials over recent years, the EU is drafting a Critical Commodities Act. That way, the EU aims to reduce dependence on countries like China.

But does this policy also challenge our continued appetite for natural resources? This session will delve deeper into some uncomfortable questions about the social and environmental impact of European resource policies, global resource justice and planetary boundaries, with civil society experts from Europe and the Global South.

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Affordable housing is becoming more and more difficult. Why is a basic right like housing left entirely to market forces where everything is about making profit? How can we organise housing differently?

Housing cooperatives offer an alternative with affordable and collective housing solutions. Karel Lootens (wooncoop), Hélène Stryckman (CLT Brussels) and Peter Bosmans (Coopkracht) explore the subject accompanied by Stefanie De Bock (De Transformisten).

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Climate reports tell us of the need for a profound transformation to avoid ecological meltdown. That means taking our economy in a completely different direction.

How do we change? This is the subject of an important discussion between scientists and activists. From that dialogue has grown a large number of publications outlining how to achieve that tilt of the economy.
The premise is that if we start from the basic needs, then there is enough for everyone to live a dignified life within the limits of the planet.

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After a whole day of Ecopolis filled with various forms of knowledge, activism and hopeful initiatives around the ecological crisis, the final panel discussion focuses on active hope, climate grief and resistance. How do you deal with concerns about climate and nature? How do you turn those concerns into engagement? Where is the middle ground between naivety and doom? What can climate activists learn from other movements?

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