9:30 Welcome

10:00 Introduction by Marine Thévenet (Cifas)

10:15 The Middle Ages as a Myth - Pierre-Olivier Dittmar (FR)

The Middle Ages have changed in recent years. The period has left the world of scholars and nostalgics to become a resource for thinking about the contemporary in new ways. Increasingly, the period is seen as a set of positions proposing solutions from a pre-capitalist world for organising our future, our survival. But the same period is now also being used by far right groups to further their agenda. The new Middle Ages are at the crossroads of these struggles, and we need to know more about them if we are to understand what is happening to us.

11:00 Panel On commons - Toestand (BE) and Rita Fenendael (BE), facilitated par Simona Denicolai (BE)

A panel discussion on the question of the commons with Toestand - an association working to reactivate abandoned spaces, and Rita Fenendael - beguine of modern times.

12:40 The Prompts Market - The Aunties (BE)

The Aunties will invite the public, through a playful score about kin families, to contribute to the panel.

13:00 Lunch

14:00 Registrations to workshops

14:30 > 17:00 Let's do it

17:00 Les Visiteur.euse.s - Clara Thomine (BE)

Film screening

Synopsis: to escape the end of the world, humans are forced to migrate to the Middle Ages, fleeing their own time. The film director guides us in better understanding the crucial stakes of this historical event.

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Bios

Pierre-Olivier Dittmar (FR)

Pierre-Olivier Dittmar is a historian and a lecturer at EHESS, and a member of the "Historical Anthropology of the Long Middle Ages group". His work focuses on interfaces with non-humans during the Long Middle Ages, whether with animals, the invisible or artefacts.

Simona Denicolai (BE)

Simona Denicolai, born in Milan (IT) in 1972, lives and works in Brussels. In 1997, she formed the artist duo Denicolai & Provoost with Ivo Provoost. Since then, they have also worked in various collaborative groups. She teaches at erg - École de recherche graphique in Brussels, in the multidisciplinary “Friche” workshop. She is an active member of various agricultural collectives working on food and medical autonomy, herbalism and land ownership.

Toestand (BE)

Toestand looks after the temporary use of vacant urban spaces by developing an inclusive social and cultural dynamics, based on meeting, action and creation.

Rita Fenendael (BE)

Rita Fenendael has a degree in Germanic philology, philosophy and theology. She has also trained in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. In spiritual terms, she feels Christian, at home in the wider Church, ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue, while at the same time firmly rooted in secular society. In terms of her vocation, she feels like a "proto-Beguine". She is particularly interested in female mysticism in the Middle Ages, and in particular the beguine movement, which she has been studying for many years. She has devoted numerous articles, lectures and interviews to the beguine movement. She has taken part in radio programmes and documentaries. Recently, the CIPO (Centre Interprétatif du Proto-Béguinisme), which she initiated and with which she collaborated, opened in Oignies (Aiseau-Presles). Rita Fenendael lived for 10 years in the first new beguinage (inaugurated in 1995) and now lives in Bruges, very close to the old princely beguinage, which is a World Heritage Site.

The Aunties (BE)

The Aunties is a Brussels-based collective dedicated to the imagination, realisation, and celebration of family models based on kinship. The Aunties are 7 artists with a variety of artistic backgrounds and activist practices, who are either already, or wishing to engage with kin family constellations and experiencing the lack of institutional support to such life choices. They wish to contribute to a reality where the nuclear family is just one of many equally supported models.

Clara Thomine (BE)

Clara Thomine (1990) lives and works in Brussels. Trained at ENSAN (Nancy) and erg (Brussels), her work combines video, installation and performance. Her work is often improvised from real-life situations. As a reporter of believable pretence, a maker of objects that aren't really what they are, and a lecturer too honest to stick to her subject, she is constantly crossing dividing lines; starting with the supposedly clear divide between fact and fiction. She tackles a variety of themes - art, digital technology, ecology, selfies - in hybrid forms such as the conference-performance Ça va changer (2019) or the exhibition Tout doit disparaître (2020-2023), an ephemeral shop selling objects found after the end of the world.