With the growing unease about democratic institutions, the question of how democracy can survive in the future becomes more urgent than ever. In 2026 and 2027, the Goethe-Institut Brussels will explore aesthetic and theoretical examinations of the current crisis of democracy. The focus will be on postcolonial perspectives that trace the genealogies of colonial and imperial forces embedded in the founding myths of Western European democracies. In doing so, they open up space for narrative corrections and democratic imaginations.

The programme will include an evening with David van Reybrouck at the House of European History, an accompanying program of the exhibition Département des Pièges by curator Dr. Clémentine Deliss at Brussel’s new KANAL Centre Pompidou, and a cooperation with Africa Is/In the Future Festival. More information will follow.