Read the Room Festival 2022

Read the Room
8:30pm on 24, 25, 26 March, 2022
Kaaistudio’s
Brussels

The premiere edition took the form of a three-day multi-disciplinary festival, which, like our similarly named publishing series, looks in at the art community, and in different formats, explores questions that we should be collectively asking ourselves as artists and publics. The title “Read the Room” is a forceful and humorous expression implying a need to be confronted or nudged out of complacency – highlighting where and how we get stuck in norms. Looking back at our last two years of reflection, the notion of “mother” with all its tangled territories (motherhood, tongues, nature, land…), acts as the theme of this edition of the festival. Hinted at, reflected upon, addressed head-on, “mother” comes in and out of these newly commissioned projects.

The program featured performances, talks, writings, videos, concerts, and more by Alaa Abu Asad and Bekriah Mawasi, Anouchka Oler Nussbaum, Bint Mbareh, Deena Abdelwahed, Dina Mimi, Geo Wyeth, Karim Kattan, Lina Soualem, Mary Jirmanus Saba, Mohammad Shawky Hassan, Nile Sunset Annex, Noor Abed, Noor Alsamarrai, and Sahar Mandour, amongst others.

The festival was realized with the support of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and in cooperation with Allianz Kulturstiftung.