Cultural Compass: Open Monument Day, Congolese history and a Rekindling

7 September 2025

After a summer full of outdoor music festivals, Belgium's museums, theatres and opera houses are opening the curtains and getting ready to take the spotlight back for the season.

Every Sunday, Belga English picks its favourite events from the cultural agenda. This week: the 37th edition of Open Monument Day, a personal look at Congolese history in Brussels and finding the humour in loss.

Open Monument Day, 14 September

This Flanders-wide celebration invites visitors to discover the splendour of the region’s hidden architectural gems.

Antwerp takes centre stage as the guest city, with this edition titled “In stijl!” (In Style!). The focus is on architectural heritage, encouraging people to look anew at façades, buildings, parks and other places they might pass without a second glance.

Across Flanders, visitors can expect a programme of walks and cycle tours, the chance to peek inside unique private homes, explore restoration sites or even climb a tower. Special activities for children ensure the day is family-friendly too, and events are free.

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In Antwerp alone, more than 170 activities will unfold. Over 40 buildings, spanning styles from Gothic to Modernism, will open, including all five finalists for the Erfgoedjuweel (Heritage Jewel) prize.

The theme “Heilige huisjes” (Holy Houses) shines a light on religious heritage, from the grandeur of the Baroque Carolus Borromeus Church to the solitary tower of the church of Sint-Laurentius, standing starkly amid the port’s containers in the abandoned polder village of Wilmarsdonk.

The Art Deco centenary will also be celebrated, with highlights in De Panne, Aarschot, Sint-Niklaas and Westerlo, as well as at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, the Millionaire’s Quarter and Ghent’s much-loved Van Eyck swimming pool.

Other themes include military architecture and the rich heritage of parks and gardens, such as Gaasbeek Castle’s grounds and historic city parks.

On 11 September, five churches in Antwerp will be transformed into cinemas for an extraordinary film evening.

Bruxelles, la Congolaise, until 13 December, Migration Museum

The exhibition Bruxelles, la Congolaise at MigratieMuseumMigration highlights the vibrant Congolese presence in the city. Through archival images, personal photographs, paintings, music and life stories, it reveals a rich and distinctive migration history, setting it apart from other communities in Brussels.

Home today to more than 180 nationalities, Brussels is a mosaic of migration. The MigratieMuseumMigration offers a permanent space for these stories, from the first guest workers and early residents of the Petit-Château, to expats, war refugees and Europeans moving freely within the EU.

The museum invites visitors not only to explore Brussels through the memories and objects of others but also to share their own experiences, ensuring that the city’s evolving story continues to grow.

Rekindling, until 7 December, Be-Part Kortrijk

In Rekindling, Joëlle Dubois brings together key works from private collections with new paintings, drawings, sculptures and her first video installation, created with Belgian visual artist and filmmaker Florinda Ciucio.

The exhibition marks a turning point, where themes of identity, intimacy, loss and memory come into sharper focus.

Dubois has long been known for her colourful, witty paintings that reflect on the individual in today’s hyper-individualistic society. Issues of gender, femininity, sexuality, diversity and even fetishism often surface in her work, approached with both humour and sharp critique.

Recently, however, a more introspective voice has emerged. Vivid colours give way to muted tones, sensual imagery to restrained forms.

At the heart of this new body of work lies personal grief: the death of her mother and the mourning that followed. The fading of memories, and with it the fragile erosion of selfhood, threads through the exhibition with quiet intensity.

The title Rekindling captures Dubois’s search for sparks of connection in the face of melancholy. Her art suggests that intimacy can survive absence, that memory, though fragile, can still be an anchor and that care and resilience remain when so much else is lost.

In case you missed it: Exhibitions that opened over the summer

The second edition of Sint-Denijs-City explores the clash between urban and rural life through works by 43 artists, many site-specific, reflecting on how communities and individuals seek their place in the world. Until 21 September

The Geopolitics of Infrastructure at M HKA brings together artists exploring the power and enchantment of infrastructures while imagining alternative models through art. Until 21 September

Tim Van Laere Gallery presents the ninth solo exhibition of Belgian artist Rinus Van de Velde, featuring new oil pastel drawings, a large charcoal self-portrait, sculptures, a large-scale installation from his upcoming film and his first monumental aluminum sculpture outdoors. Until 4 October

The Woodcarver and the Forest begins as a meditative portrait of a solitary craftsman, where the slow rhythm of woodcarving evokes calm and intimacy, before gradually revealing a darker story of vanishing forests and the passage of time. Alongside other works by David Claerbout within Gaasbeek Castle’s historic rooms, the exhibition invites visitors to reflect on memory, consumption and the fragile ties between craft, nature and architecture. Until 16 November

Step back in time to the late 19th and early 20th centuries at Fairground Wonders at Ghent's Huis van Alijn: a time when fairs dazzled visitors with magic shows, scientific inventions, exotic animals and "miracle" workers, and explore this forgotten world through an exhibition complete with a family trail. Until 26 April