Moussem Cities

The Moussem Cities festival turns to a different metropolis in the SWANA region and broader African continent each edition, in an endeavour to channel their artistic vitality to Brussels. Together with local artists, diasporic creatives, and various partner organisations in Brussels, a programme of literature, poetry, film, performance, visual arts, music, reflection, community proposals, photography and urbanism is set all over the city.

The festival series was born ten years ago, when Moussem invited Tunisian artists, thinkers and cultural operators to tell the story of Tunis through their work. After theatre city Tunis – five years after the Jasmine Revolution – followed Beirut, the artistic centre of the Middle East that flourished before the civil war, the port city Casablanca, the cultural hub Algiers and Damascus; next, Dakar and Tehran following geographical expansion of Moussem’s field of vision, and finally the transcontinental metropolis of Istanbul in 2025.

Today, Moussem Cities is a biannual festival exploring urbanity across geographies – a confrontation of art scenes, a platform of recognition, exchange, and collision.