Before censorship comes homologation

How Silicon Valley-speak invaded our artistic practice

Historical fascism wasn’t unique in its modus operandi or its goals, writes Rodrigo Batista. On the contrary: where it failed – in trying to impose “total inner adhesion” – neoliberal capitalism has stepped in to finish the job. When consumerism becomes the sole conceivable ideology, where does that leave the arts? Are artists really bound to operate within the language of homologation and commodification, as has become the norm, or is there another way?

Rodrigo Batista

article 08.09.2026

“In the end, money is the only language everyone speaks fluently”

Milo Rau, Christiane Jatahy and Matej Drlička on artistic freedom in an increasingly authoritarian Europe

How free are the arts in a Europe whose politics are tilting steadily to the right? Floris Baeke put the question to Wiener Festwochen director Milo Rau — always eager to lead the charge, to Brazilian director Christiane Jatahy, and to the dismissed Slovak theatre director Matej Drlička, who is currently legally barred from even uttering the name of his own Minister of Culture. “To defend artistic freedom today, we have to use the very institutions we would happily have torn down twenty years ago.”

Floris Baeke

interview 08.09.2026

When Bodies Move Against Fascism

From the Nonfascist Body to Antifascist Alliances: The 1970s and Brussels Today

Think of Leni Riefenstahl’s sculpted athletes or the mechanical precision of military parades: classical fascism always relied on an ideal of rigid, obedient, invincible bodies. Experimental dance in the 1970s set a non-fascist body against this ideal, with Contact Improvisation as a physical practice of non-violence. Bojana Cvejić examines what remains of this ‘non-fascist’ legacy today, seeing it resurface in La Candidate Sans-Papiers, which centres solidarity with the very bodies contemporary fascism tries to erase.

Bojana Cvejić

article 08.09.2026

The Body as Archive

How political systems live on in our bodies

As student protests shake Belgrade, theatremaker Sanja Mitrović keeps a diary from Brussels. The distance sharpens her gaze on the invisible traces that political systems have left in her own body. Her notes lead back to the Yugoslavia of her youth, to her father’s letters, and to her hometown, which has already changed its name three times.

diary 08.09.2026

Artistic Autonomy after Gaza

How cultural censorship in Berlin suppresses solidarity

Berlin’s long-celebrated art scene is in danger. Dalia Maini, editor-in-chief of the Berlin street newspaper Arts of the Working Class, dissects Germany’s new cultural McCarthyism, where state funding has been weaponised against Palestinian solidarity. Maini exposes Germany’s bureaucratic trap designed to paralyse collective action and restrict artistic freedom. How can a cultural scene resist under the crushing weight of political pressure, administrative isolation, and self-censorship?

Dalia Maini

essay 08.09.2026

State of the Future 2026 – Frederico Araujo

A Forest of the Future

On September 2, 2026, Frederico Araujo delivered his State of the Future during the opening ceremony of the TheaterFestival at KVS in Brussels. “We know that making a living as an artist is difficult for a person who was born here. Imagine what it is like for someone who was not?”

Frederico Araujo

statement 02.09.2026

Making theatre at the standstill of time [ENG]

Outside eyes from Bangkok

In her second column, Thai producer and artist Sasapin Siriwanij writes about the temporal discrepancy in Bangkok. The city is evolving at a furious pace, but the Ministry of Culture is turning back time and promoting Thai identity and traditional clothing. Everything is fast-changing, yet people feel they are not moving anywhere. In the refuge of the theater however, artists can set up their own kind of clock.

Sasapin Siriwanij

column 01.09.2026