In May 2018 the Catalan rapper Valtònyc fled to Belgium. In his homeland Spain he was sentenced to imprisonment for insulting the crown and glorifying terrorism in his texts. Can an artist make his political voice heard in his work? Who decides where art ends and propaganda begins? Some compare the authoritarian attitude of Madrid today with the

Action Zoo Humain and hetpaleis are looking for a male dancer for their new theatre production Dihya, a youth performance with dance and music, played by Dahlia Pessemiers-Benamar and directed by Simon De Vos. The text is written by Rachida Lamrabet. The monologue tells the story of the Amazigh queen Dihya, situated in the seventh century, who

How does Muslim fundamentalism influence the Arab art world? In the documentary When Arabs Danced, director Jawad Rhalib portrays the resistance of Arab artists against Islamic fundamentalism. During the creation and rehearsal process of Subjection (2017) it soon became clear to Action Zoo Humain that Islam is not an easy subject to bring to the

The Truth Commision in the Belgian Senate in Brussels (2018) - © Kurt Van der Elst

Last weekend, more than 500 spectators in the Senate voted on five policy recommendations for the processing of the Belgian colonial past. A truth commission examined the exhibition of people from Belgian Congo at the 1897 and 1958 world exhibitions in Brussels and formulated policy recommendations addressed to the authorities of our country

"I see decolonisation as stepping out of your cage or taking people out of a cage. You can only see yourself as a victim - then you put yourself in a cage - or you can put other people in a cage, for example by saying: they are Muslims and they are dangerous. I consider decolonisation to be a day-to-day practice in which you become aware of how

A first for Action Zoo Humain: on 8 and 9 November the performance Amnesty/Amnesia and its Catalan counterpart AMNE(I)S(T)IA: Say Sorry were on stage simultaneously; one in Ghent, the other in Barcelona. Together with choreographer Laura Neyskens, artistic director (AZH) and researcher (KASK/School of Arts/HoGent) Chokri Ben Chikha and alumni of