The 2022 Exhibition 'The Act of Breathing' will unravel at both Asiat, Vilvoorde as well as Cinematek, Brussels. Asiat will host 10 in-situ artworks engaging with the architectural and symbolic character of the former military base, while 3 other artists come together at Cinematek to be counterparted with a programme of films curated by Monique Mbeka Phoba.

It's co-produced by KANAL - Centre Pompidou in the framework of 'Living Traces', their year-long programme between Kinshasa and Brussels. 'The Act of Breathing' will — after its glorious opening during the Festival — run from May 12 to July 31.

For the first time, the Exhibition’s opening coincides with the three-day Festival. On this occasion, Laure Prouvost’s commission transforms into one of the five dancefloors. Visual artists Pascale Marthine Tayou and Benjamin Orlow engage with the exterior surfaces of the buildings punctuating the Asiat site, while the universes of Michèle Magema and Kris Lemsalu (right image) will inhabit the derelict military barracks.

Soraya Lutangu Bonaventure & Ali-Eddine Abdelkhalek showcase a video work as part of a larger research collaboration with the curators in Kinshasa. At Cinematek, Mega Mingiedi is — among others — exhibiting a laborious drawing representing a dialogue between Brussels and Kinshasa.

The Act of Breathing

'The Act of Breathing' explores the breath. A repetitive force. An instinctive necessity. A tool for political resistance, when voices are silenced. When earth is depleted. When collectivity is shattered. When music loses its soul.

It’s in those moments that the continuous reclaiming of air becomes a space for battle, for gathering. for healing.

The Exhibition considers Congo, and the power it continues to exert, as a pathway that allows to envision where this struggle can lead to: the breath as an element which sculpts, through its repetition, the environment we’re inhabiting - physical in its materiality, and symbolic in its political manifestation.

The participating artists therefore take over the Asiat-site with predominantly site-specific installations that connect to each like one long breath, transmitting energy and linking body to body to form a strong alliance.

Artists:

Anthony Ngoya, Benjamin Orlow, Hadassa Ngamba, Kris Lemsalu, Laure Prouvost, Leonard Pongo, Maika Garnica, Michèle Magema, mountaincutters, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Soraya Lutangu Bonaventure & Ali-Eddine Abdelkhalek