If you’re looking for speculations on why Molenbeek is such a hotbed for terrorism, read no further, this post is not for you. This is the complementary information to the news that you’ve been reading: the daily life, the vibe, the ways that Edgeryders can get involved in this municipilaty being portrayed (not entirely unfairly) as being rich in poverty and crime.
I’m a local from Brussels, my grandparents are from Molenbeek, I’ve lived close to it most of my life and wrote my thesis on the intentional gentrification that is currently taking place. Yesterday @ireinga and I had a meeting in LaVallée, a 5000 m² co-working space for artist, to discuss whether LOTE5 could happen in their premises.
This is us on our way there,
This is LaVallée’s entrance (it’s a collection of buildings, hard to show an overview on picture without disposing of our helicopter),
And this are Lieza and Pierre, managers of the place and employees of Smartbe, an organisation that gives juridical, financial and administrative support to artists and creative professionals:
The reason we are interested in LaVallée for LOTE5 is because 1) we like the vibe and 2) as we stupidly only realized during the meeting, Smartbe can be a strategic partner for LOTE, as one of the topics will be unfailing failures in creative industries.
First, let’s show you the vibe. The place has loads of artists workspaces which we obviously can’t freely access, but it also has expo rooms that also serve as event halls. These are quite versatile, as currently they look like this:
But during a FuckUp Night that @ireinga and I organized there in September it looked like this:
We talked to Pierre and Lieza about our needs for LOTE and had to conclude that LaVallée is actually not very suited. It doesn’t have a real kitchen and due to its thick concreet walls internet connection is minimal. The good news, however, is that they love the LOTE5 concept and they have other buildings available in Saint-Gilles (15-20 minutes away by metro). They proposed that perhaps we can have LOTE partly in Saint-Gilles, Partly in Molenbeek, but that they would have to check with the Smartbe bosses to see whether it would be possible and at which price.
Irene went with Lieza to see the rooms and Saint-Gilles and came to the conclusion that it could work - it’s not our dream luxury resort, but it has bigger rooms, smaller rooms, two kitchens, we could be there late during the evenings and it comes with a guaranteed stable internet connection.
Here are some images:
And here’s the news: we just heard back from Pierre that Smartbe is enthusiast and up for being a strategic partner - meaning that they want to learn with us how we can fail and unfail creative industries, and for that they don’t mind supporting us with their premises.
Nothing is set in stone and we are not obliged to take the deal, but to us it doesn’t seem like the worst proposition.
What do you guys think?
Looking forward to your reactions!
Kira
What I mean is: your parents where able to reach out to Syrians in town. So was Joannes. This means that a channel is there, and relatively accessible.