Let This Darkness be a Bell Tower

15th JUNE 2025 · 11h—18h

Place Antoine Delporte, Saint-Gilles

An echo on both sides of the wall

This year, we are presenting an immersive sound installation, conceived as an invitation to reflection and reconnection. This project seeks to connect, through the senses, the residents of the neighborhood with their invisible neighbors: the inmates of the Saint-Gilles prison, just on the other side of the wall.

How is life around a prison? How does this place imprint itself on our bodies, our thoughts, our collective imagination?

The title of this project is inspired by a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, which invites us to transform our moments of darkness into inner strength – through listening, breathing, and attention. This creation weaves a vibrant soundscape, carried by the narration of a tale – because stories always bring us together. Like an ecosystem where reality and imagination intertwine and settle within us: the neighborhood’s chimes, electroacoustic layers, the storyteller’s voice, the cries of the inmates, and the poetry that reminds us of what truly matters – the need to connect to beauty.

An experience to be tasted

As with every creation by Les Passagées, Let this Darkness be a Bell Tower extends beyond listening – through the tasting of an interpretation, a flavour.

This year, Les Passagées are delighted to welcome restaurant Humus & Hortense (Michelin*) to craft a culinary interpretation of the installation. Through an original creation, chef Nicolas Decloedt and mixologist Caroline Baerten will translate the sonic experience into a single bite, where every flavor resonates with the frequencies, silences, and echoes of the piece.

Let This Darkness be a Bell Tower aims to

create a space for conversation, observation and reflection
reconnect the neighbourhood to the prison and town hall
open up a space where locals can express themselves freely and publicly
invite artists, thinkers, poets, designers… to create and think around the themes of the prison, public space and the link to the living.

Let this Darkness be a Bell Tower, a collective performance by :

Alexandra Swenden, Raphaël Vens, Huguette Izobimpa, Marie-Rose Meysman, Humus & Hortense, Olivier Pirlet, Caroline Dejonghe, Uma Naddermier