For the second time from 3 to 7 April, Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg organised a national presence at the Brussels Book Fair, honouring Luxembourg’s literary creation, primarily in French and English. The “Livres du Luxembourg” stand brought together five Luxembourg publishers (Black Fountain Press, Capybarabooks, Hydre Éditions, KIWI E.L.G. and PassaParola Éditions), which presented their publications in literature and non-fiction. For the opening ceremony, a reception was organised at the stand “Livres du Luxembourg”, allowing the invitees of the Brussels Book Fair to discover and meet the various Luxembourgish Publishing houses present. Marc Angel, vice President of the European Parliament, and his H.E. Jean-Louis Thill, Ambassador of Luxembourg in Bruxelles, visited the stand “Livres du Luxembourg”.
As part of the fair’s programme, a reading with Luxembourg authors Jean Portante and Antoine Pohu was organised around the theme of “The architecture of unstable times”. On this occasion, Jean Portante read extracts from Une dernière fois, la Méditérranée (Éditions Phi) and Antoine Pohu from Nous sommes celleux qui marchent dans la ville (Capybarabooks). The reading and discussion was moderated by Rachele Gusella, Literary researcher at the Research Foundation Flanders-FWO. The reading was followed by a book signing of the two authors and a reception at the stand offering a unique networking opportunity to have an exchange with the authors and publishers from Luxembourg.
For the first time, the Brussels Book Fair organised a three-day Workshop “Publishing in the French-Speaking World”, bringing together around 15 French-language publishers. The Luxembourgish publishers Ian De Toffoli (Hydre Éditions) participated at this programme for professionals, developed jointly with several partners, which offered opportunities for discussion, networking, and training, creating unique opportunities for future collaborations and projects.
This spring, Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg is supporting a national stand at the Brussels Book fair for the second time to showcase Luxembourg’s publishing sector and French-language publications in particular.
From 4 to 7 April 2024, Kultur | lx will host a national stand showcasing a delegation of five publishing houses—Black Fountain Press, Capybarabooks, Hydre Edition, Kiwi E.LG et Passa Parola Editions—and their authors. They will present their latest releases to publishing professionals and the French-speaking general public.
This fair is not only an excellent way to present authors from Luxembourg and boost distribution of their works by organising readings and talks, but also an excellent platform for other meetings and discussions.
This year, Kultur | lx will once again organise a reading as part of the official Brussels Book Fair programme.
Friday 5 April, 3 p.m. to 3.45 p.m. | Reading and discussion ‘The architecture of unstable times’
Scène Savoirs, Brussels Book Fair
Authors: Jean Portante (Une dernière fois, la Méditerranée – Éditions Phi) & Antoine Pohu (Nous sommes celleux qui marchent dans la ville, Capybarabooks)
Moderator: Rachele Gusella (Literary researcher, Research Foundation Flanders – FWO)
Two authors from Luxembourg will reflect on the current state of global affairs through a monologue that cries out in shock and anger at the state of the world, and a polyphonic novel that weaves a narrative arc running from Virgil to the European migration crisis.
In addition, through its support for career development for artists and creatives in Luxembourg, Kultur | lx will also send Ian De Toffolli (Hydre Éditions) to the ‘Publishing in the French-Speaking World’ workshops organised by the Brussels Book Fair. For the first time, this programme for professionals, developed jointly with several partners, will offer opportunities for discussion, networking, and training for around 15 French-language publishers. The three-day workshop will bring together publishers who have catalogues that include works from several French-language territories and who are interested in launching joint publications.
Event at the Books from Luxembourg stand | Shed1, Stand 150 from 4 to 7 April.
Next events:
‘Poetry from Luxembourg’ Stand | Marché de la Poésie from 19 to 23 June
PROPULSION is a career development and networking programme dedicated to jazz and improvised music artists from the Région Grand Est (France), Luxembourg and the French-speaking part of Belgium.
The laureates, who are selected upon a call for proposals, are granted tailor-made training on touring, production and communication. Mentors from each country provide the laureates an artistic point of view and advice on their projects.
The first edition of the programme gave the bands of Daniel Migliosi (Luxembourg) and Hugo Diaz (Région Grand Est) the opportunity to be accompanied by the team of the Compagnie Tangram and the artistic mentors of the programme, who were Stéphane Scharlé and Maxime Bender.
This second edition of the program brings a number of new features. Firstly, the arrival of Belgian partners in the program, and the introduction of a second program entitled PropulsionWOMEN, aimed exclusively at female musicians wishing to develop their skills in the leadership of musical projects. In addition to taking part in the joint PROPULSION program, the aim of the three laureates will be to finalise an artistic project to be presented live by one of PROPULSION’s partners by the end of the program. The winners will be mentored by a fellow musician with a proven track record. The mentors are Marion Rampal for the Grand Est region, Claire Parsons for Luxembourg and Margaux Vranken for the French-speaking part of Belgium.
Propulsion #2 is also offering the second edition of its PropulsionBANDS program, dedicated to the career and artistic development of existing projects. The BAND mentors are Stéphane Scharlé for France, Jeff Herr for Luxembourg and Manuel Hermia for the French-speaking part of Belgium.
Both programmes have the following objectives:
- Accelerate the professionalisation of emerging talents through comprehensive, individualised support;
- Promote and raise the profile of a generation of jazz artists on a European scale;
- Promote cooperation between cross-border cultural players and create a network open to Europe;
- Exploit the potential of mentoring and pooling resources;
- Include eco-responsibility and social issues (parity, diversity, etc.).
Who are the Luxembourgish laureates of PROPULSION #2?
PropulsionWOMEN | Veda Bartringer, guitarist
Veda Bartringer is a multi-instrumentalist from Luxembourg. She discovered the world of jazz at the age of 17, taking classes at the Conservatoire d’Esch-sur-Alzette, the Conservatoire de Luxembourg and the École de Musique de Dudelange, where she learned from musicians such as Pit Dahm, Pol Belardi, David Laborier, Jacques Pirotton and Erik Teuwens.
Starting in 2017, she pursued advanced musical studies in jazz guitar at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, graduating with a Master’s degree in jazz guitar in 2022. During these 5 years of study, she learned alongside guitarists Fabien Degryse and Victor Da Costa, as well as François Decamps. Veda is a member of several Belgian and Luxembourg projects and has shared the stage with various artists. She is currently working on several personal projects, including duo projects with saxophonist Fabrice Muratore, Madagascan guitarist Joël Rabesolo, a solo guitar project, as well as the Veda Bartringer Quartet.
Guitarist Claire Besson is the winner of PropulsionWOMEN for the Grand Est region, and Lucia Pires, a flautist based in French-speaking Belgium, has been selected to take part in the program.
PropulsionBANDS | The Metz Foundation, Joël Metz
Joël Metz is a saxophonist. Having achieved his Bachelor and Master studies at the conservatory of Amsterdam and Codarts Rotterdam, Joël pursues his musical career as a bandleader of his group The Metz Foundation, a sideman for projects like the Josh Island Band and the Luxembourg Jazz Orchestra and as an educator for modern music at the Conservatoire du Nord in Luxembourg.
With an affinity for extended techniques like multiphonics, Joël likes to combine traditionally informed material with experimental sounds in his playing.
PropulsionBANDS selected Nobaban for the Région Grand Est and Bodies for the French-speaking part of Belgium.
After ENGLBRT‘s acclaimed performances at the USINA23 festival, where they were spotted by renowned Belgian booker Peter Verstraelen, and their EP release show at Rotondes, the collaborative duo of Georges Goerens and Niels Engel are now taking to the stages of our neighbours in France and Belgium.
Their first show abroad will take place on the 8th of November at the Crossroads Festival in Roubaix (France). The festival was created in 2016 to promote French and international artists and provide a networking platform for professionals.
ENGLBRT’s unique sound, which combines electro, contemporary jazz and well-crafted indie pop, can also be heard on 22 November at De Zwerver in Leffinge (Belgium), when they support Compact Disk Dummies for their sold-out show.
Kultur | lx, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, the Embassy of Luxembourg in Berlin and the Saarländische Galerie – Berlin, launched a call for applications aimed at Luxembourg-based professional art galleries for the design of an monographic or collective exhibition of Luxembourg artists lasting four to six weeks between during Berlin Art Week.
By drawing on a network with both commercial and institutional reach, this initiative, coinciding with a key event in Berlin’s cultural calendar, aims to promote artists and players from the Luxembourg art scene on the German and international stage.
The jury chose the project Industrial-Visceral by the artist Hisae Ikenaga, proposed by the gallery Nosbaum & Reding, because it believes in the potential of the artist, who has not yet had a solo exhibition in Germany. The artist – whose sculptural work, at the crossroads of several techniques, questions our relationship to objects, their history, their manufacture and their function – deserves to be discovered on the Berlin scene where the series presented, already successfully exhibited in Luxembourg and Belgium, could meet the “cutting-edge” public of the Berlin Art Week.
Hisae Ikenaga is a multidisciplinary artist who has studied art theory and visual arts in cities such as Mexico City, Kyoto, Barcelona and Madrid. Based in Luxembourg, she has shown her work in various solo and group exhibitions around the world and has received several awards, including the LEAP20 Luxembourg Encouragement for Artists Prize in 2020 and first prize in the first OAI Art in Situ competition for her in situ project for the headquarters of the Ordre des Architectes et Ingénieurs Conseils du Luxembourg (OAI) in 2021.
About Saarländische Galerie
The Saarländische Galerie is an independent non-profit association. Capitalising on Saarland’s location in the centre of Europe, the Saarländische Galerie – Europäisches Kunstforum is involved in cross-border cultural exchanges with other European countries such as Luxembourg. The aim of the gallery is to provide a platform in Berlin for artists from Saarland and its partner regions to showcase their work on the German capital’s lively – and booming – art scene.
About Berlin Art Week
Berlin Art Week is a platform providing a springboard for extensive collaboration between the most important institutions in the Berlin art world. Once a year, it presents a diverse programme with over 50 partners ranging from museums to arts centres, fairs, private collections, project spaces and numerous galleries. The programme invites the public to discover ongoing developments in the world of contemporary art. Its audience is made up of many professionals as well as art experts and art lovers from Germany and around the world.
The Berlin Art Week will take place from 13 to 17 September 2023.
From 29 March to 2 April, Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg organised for the first time a national presence at the Brussels Book Fair, honouring Luxembourg’s literary creation, primarily in French. The “Livres du Luxembourg” stand brought together four Luxembourg publishers (Capybarabooks, Hydre Éditions, KIWI E.L.G. and PassaParola Éditions), which presented their French-language publications in literature and non-fiction.
This major event allowed the public to discover and meet the authors at book signings, including Antoine Pohu, Tullio Forgiarini and Nathalie Ronvaux, as well as the various Luxembourg publishing houses present.
In the margins of the fair, a networking event for Luxembourg and Quebec book actors was organised in collaboration with the Délégation Générale du Québec and the Luxembourg Embassy in Brussels at the Galerie Nosbaum Reding in Brussels to encourage and develop collaborations in the book sector. This event offered a unique networking opportunity to discuss possible new collaborations and projects with actors of the Quebec book sector.
« Osons l’imaginaire » (Let’s dare to imagine)
As part of the fair’s programme, a meeting/reading with Luxembourg authors Tullio Forgiarini and Nathalie Ronvaux (moderated by Valerija Berdi, journalist at Radio 100.7) was organised around the theme of “Transgressions and feminist perspectives”. On this occasion, Tullio Forgiarini read extracts from La ballade de Lucienne Jourdain (Hydre Éditions) and Nathalie Ronvaux from Moi, je suis Rosa! (Capybarabooks). The discussion gave the audience an insight into the authors’ writing practice and creative process.
The Brussels Book Fair was an opportunity to develop a new format to present Luxembourg publishers and authors on Instagram. Kultur | lx will continue this series of portraits over the course of the next few international fairs.
From 26 to 30 April, you can discover Luxembourg’s literary creation in german at the Leipzig Book Fair.
This spring, Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg will give enthusiastic readers an opportunity to discover and explore the diversity of Luxembourg’s literary and book publishing scene with booths at both the Brussels Book Fair and Leipzig Book Fair.
This will be Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg’s first time exhibiting at the Luxembourg booth at these two major events.
Four Luxembourg publishers – Capybarabooks, Hydre Edition, Kiwi E.L.G. and PassaParola Editions – have opted to take advantage of this opportunity to exhibit their latest French-language releases in literature, non-fiction and children’s books at the Brussels Book Fair (30 March to 2 April 2023 on the booth “Livres du Luxembourg” – n°209).
And at the Leipzig Book Fair, the second largest in Germany, which this year will be held from 27 to 30 April, six Luxembourg publishers – Black Fountain Press, Capybarabooks, Editions Guy Binsfeld, Hydre Editions, Kremart Editions, Point Nemo Publishing – will present their new spring releases.
Not only are these fairs critically important for helping boost the profile of Luxembourg works and authors – through the organisation of readings and the presentation of authors attending the events — but they are also a platform where professionals can meet up and discuss and debate issues, while serving as the perfect venue for the general public to discover Luxembourg authors and find out just how diverse the Luxembourg book sector actually is.
- At the Brussels book fair, there will be a reading and discussion on Transgressions and feminist perspectives with Tullio Forgiarini and Nathalie Ronvaux on Sunday, 2 April at 10:00 a.m.;
- At the Leipzig Book Fair, Maxime Weber, Claire Schmartz, Samuel Hamen, Nico Helminger (heteronym: Tomas Bjørnstad) will engage in readings, discussions and a debate on What if…? Between fiction and speculation.
To promote the publishers and authors present at these fairs to a wider readership at home with the bookstagram phenomenon, Kultur | lx has developed a new video format that will be released on 15 March on Instagram only.
Continuing to connect the Luxembourg performing arts sector with those of neighbouring countries, Kultur | lx organised a second field trip to Belgium, following the visit to Brussels in May 2022. This time, the meetings focused on the French-speaking area.
This meeting was organised with the aim of allowing artists, independent collectives and production companies from Luxembourg to discover their peers with the aim of nurturing cross-border collaborations.
A delegation of twelve artists and other performing arts professionals from all disciplines took advantage of this unique opportunity to meet the managements and discover the venues of the Wallonia-Brussels federation: the Théâtre and CCN of Namur, the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, the Théâtre des Martyrs, the Halles de Schaerbeek, MARS – Mons arts de la scène, Charleroi danse, the Théâtre de l’Ancre and the Théâtre de Liège.
This visit was an opportunity for some to strengthen ties forged during their studies in Belgium or through past collaborations, and for others it allowed them to open doors that were previously difficult to open. It was certainly a reminder of the geographical and cultural proximity and the many areas of exchange that exist and can be developed between Belgium and Luxembourg.
“I very much appreciated this field trip of the performing arts in Wallonia. The meeting between several cultural actors from different countries was greatly facilitated by this initiative. I also discovered more about the directors’ vision of their cultural institution, which allowed me to better understand their respective expectations. The meetings were also very enriching thanks to the sharing of experiences and the discovery of each other’s projects. This initiative is very relevant for the deployment of Luxembourg’s performing arts, thank you!” commented Paloma Georges from Bombyx, an artists’ collective, about this trip.
This year, Fifty Lab is inviting the most promising upcoming talents for three days throughout iconic venues in the heart of Brussels. A unique take on the traditional showcase festival, Fifty Lab takes recommendations from some of the most influential Belgian and international musical programmers (i.e. Primavera Sound, Down the Rabbit Hole, Montreux Jazz Festival, Pukkelpop, Couleur Café, and Luxembourg’s very own Siren’s Call Festival). The audience will discover the next musical crushes from all genres and nationalities.
Kultur | lx is proud to be presenting the first Luxembourgish artist at Fifty Lab, MAZ. Risen out of the ashes of early 2000’s Metal and Rock influences, MAZ is known for delivering a powerful and truthful message to his audiences with a determination to not only scratch at the surface, but to tear through it and see what lies underneath. With a sharpened musical and visual identity, the young rapper wants to give the voiceless not just a voice, but also an uncompromising vision and thus urging his listeners to drop the self-imposed masks and all other unnecessary superficialities to eventually find their true selves.
Want to join MAZ Friday, November 18th at Fifty Lab? Kultur | lx is inviting a small Luxembourgish delegation to attend the festival. Professionals can apply for financial support to attend via the Kultur | lx “Support for mobility, research and career development.” More details here.
MAZ at Fifty Lab
Friday November 18th
8:40 – 9:20 PM | L’ARCHIDUC
More information here.
On the occasion of the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, one of the most important events for the performing arts in Europe, Kultur | lx organised a programme of professional meetings with the main actors of the Brussels scene.
This meeting was organised with the aim of allowing artists, independent collectives and production companies from Luxembourg to discover their neighbours with a view to fostering cross-border collaborations. A dozen professionals met and exchanged ideas over three days of programming.
The participants were able to get to know historical companies such as Need Company, Ultima Vez and Crew, but also Kunstenwerkplaats, the residency programme of the Pianofabriek cultural centre and the new directions of the Varia, Tanneurs and Balsamine theatres as well as Kunstenfestivaldesarts and Les Brigittines. In addition to their respective artistic backgrounds and lines, each of them was able to express their commitment to international cooperation and their interest in Luxembourg. For the Luxembourg participants, it was also an opportunity to get to know the production, distribution and public support system in Belgium.
“Three rich and wonderful days in one of my favourite cities […]. We were meeting Théâtre and festival directors as well as professionals who generously shared their cultural philosophies, practices and politics. We learned a lot about the particularity of the Belgian performing arts sector, about the complex nature of the different communities and governments, the particular dual situation of Brussels, the difficulties, opportunities and richness this creates, and the intentions and attempts to bridge them,” commented Tania Soubry on her Instagram account about the trip.
At the end of a crisis that has disrupted the means of creation and dissemination, Belgium’s close example offers great potential for the Luxembourg scene.