1.10.2026 - 31.10.2026 Arts, History, Others

When Art Explores Brussels’ Foodscapes

Behind every meal lies a vast infrastructure: farmland, markets, shops, warehouses, transport networks, food safety regulations, borders and distribution systems. These mechanisms often remain invisible, yet they profoundly shape the architecture of cities, their public spaces and the everyday lives of their inhabitants.

Presented in Brussels throughout October 2026, The Belly of the City. Architecture of the Foodscape is an artistic, architectural and research project dedicated to exploring this “foodscape”. It examines how food is produced, transported, sold, consumed and discarded, as well as the economic, social and political relationships that develop around it.

The project addresses issues such as the disappearance of small shops and markets, the development of urban agriculture, short food supply chains, food waste, the standardisation of food and access to local, high-quality produce.

Rather than bringing all the artworks together in a traditional exhibition space, The Belly of the City unfolds across several neighbourhoods of Brussels. Grocery stores, a market, a public square, a delivery van, an independent venue and a faculty of architecture become stops along a city-wide exhibition route. The artworks are thus presented in the very places where food circulates, is sold, processed and consumed.

The project brings together three complementary components:

an artistic trail featuring installations, videos, posters, performances and interventions in public spaces;
an international conference held at the ULB Faculty of Architecture La Cambre Horta;
a programme of encounters, workshops and guided visits, inviting the public to discover the different locations involved in the project.

The City Through the Food Practices of the Polish Diaspora

One of the starting points of the project is the foodscape of the Polish diaspora in Brussels: its shops, distribution networks, culinary traditions and everyday practices.
Polish grocery stores, imported products, recipes passed down from generation to generation, and eating habits that evolve through contact with other cultures illustrate how food accompanies migration and contributes to the formation of identities.
Through these practices, the exhibition highlights informal economies, networks of solidarity and meeting places that contribute to Brussels’ cultural diversity.
It also explores inequalities in access to food, the relationship between consumption and social class, and the environmental and political consequences of contemporary food systems.

Agnieszka Kurant, Currency Converter. Map of Informal Food Currencies, 2026. Installation in the window of Kofiko Polish grocery store, 311 Chaussée d’Ixelles, Brussels.

Centrum Centrum, artwork installed on the fence of a community urban farm in Brussels. Installation view of The Belly of the City, 2026.

Artworks Across the City

Curated by architect Aleksandra Wasilkowska, the exhibition brings together artists whose works inhabit different locations across Brussels, offering distinctive perspectives on the relationships between food, memory, migration, economics and urban space.

→ Agnieszka Kurant presents Currency Converter. Map of Informal Food Currencies, an installation displayed in the window of the Polish grocery store Kofiko on Chaussée d’Ixelles. The artist explores how certain food products have served as currencies of exchange across different historical periods and economic contexts.
→ Karolina Jabłońska uses a delivery van transporting food products from Poland to Polish shops in Brussels as a canvas for her paintings. Her works evoke memory, culinary traditions and the emotional connections between food and places of origin.
→ Krzysztof Kaczmarek presents Powdered Cabbage, a video screened at the checkout counter of the Polish grocery store Kubuś on Rue Malibran in Ixelles. Taking the form of a musical melodrama featuring food products, the work questions consumption norms, narratives surrounding healthy eating and social distinctions associated with taste.
→ Dawid Misiorny presents Phytosanitary, an installation consisting of potatoes and a fragment of a car body, near the Abattoirs d’Anderlecht market. The work examines borders, sanitary regulations and the contradictions surrounding the movement of people and goods. The artist also presents Foodscape, a photographic series documenting sites of food production, processing and distribution.
→ Centrum Centrum, a collective formed by Łukasz Jastrubczak and Małgorzata Mazur, presents When a Cucumber Eats a Snail, a project combining posters, sound art and interventions in markets and Polish shops. It explores different forms of food production, from industrial agriculture to community gardens and self-sufficiency practices.
→ Aleksandra Nowysz presents A Better Tomorrow, a textile installation inspired by utopian architectural projects of the 20th century that envisioned new relationships between agriculture and urban space.
→ Janek Simon presents Street Vendor, a performance at the Place Flagey market. Using imaginary fruits created with digital tools and 3D printing, the artist invites reflection on cultural exchange, diversity and the possibilities of imagining new realities.
→ Pola Sutryk presents The Mouldy Feast, a participatory culinary performance that challenges our perceptions of abundance, food waste and the boundaries between what is considered edible and what becomes waste.
→ Slavs and Tatars transform a private space in Ixelles into their Pickle Bar, a temporary performance bar dedicated to fermentation, cultural exchange and the relationships between food and language. The programme also brings together Łukasz Jastrubczak, Ala Savashevich and Filipka Rutkowska for musical performances, workshops and artistic interventions.

At the heart of this exploration is also Aleksandra Wasilkowska’s architectural proposal for a future “belly of the city”. Conceived for central Warsaw, the project brings together a food market hall, an urban farm, food production and processing facilities, a bar mleczny (traditional Polish milk bar), a food education centre and a food bank within a single public building. It offers an alternative to long food supply chains by bringing producers, consumers and everyday urban life closer together.

An International Conference to Rethink Foodscapes

Organised as part of the project, the international conference New Territories of Foodscapes brings together architects, urban planners, researchers, artists and food systems specialists around a central question: how can we rethink the city through the systems that feed it?
Discussions will focus on urban agriculture, relationships between urban and rural areas, new forms of food production, the transformation of agricultural landscapes, and more sustainable and equitable approaches to spatial planning.
The conference aims to foster dialogue between scientific research, artistic practices and grassroots initiatives, exploring new ways of producing, distributing and sharing food resources.

Programme

9:20–10:10: The Urzecze Project – Joanna Erbel, Aleksandra Nowysz and Maciej Łepkowski.
10:25–10:45: New Ruralities – Nadia Casabella (ULB).
10:45–11:05: Architectural Alternatives in Response to the Transformation of Industrial Agriculture – Axel Fisher (ULB).
11:05–11:45: Territorial Strategies in Neerpede: Agriculture, Nature and Landscapes – Catherine Fierens.
12:05–13:05: Lunch break featuring a Milk Bar, inspired by traditional Polish canteens.
13:05–14:05: Sour on Power – lecture by Slavs and Tatars.
14:05–15:05: Bioregionalism – Mathias Rollot (ENSAG).
15:25–16:25: Food Systems and the City – Damien Conaré (Institut Agro Montpellier).
16:25–16:55: Roundtable discussion on future research and collaboration opportunities.

Performances, Encounters and Discoveries: 30–31 October

Friday, 30 October
From 19:00: An evening of encounters and artistic performances centred around the Pickle Bar by Slavs and Tatars, featuring contributions from Łukasz Jastrubczak, Ala Savashevich and Filipka Rutkowska.

Saturday, 31 October
10:00–13:00: Street Vendor – a performance by Janek Simon at the Place Flagey market in Ixelles.
13:00–14:00: Guided tour of the multicultural market at the Abattoirs d’Anderlecht, offering an insight into one of Brussels’ main food markets.
14:00–18:00: Pickle Bar performances and closing programme.