4 themes

The “Middle Kingdom’s” fascination and appeal have never been stronger. China has taken centre stage, whether in the media or in our daily lives but how much do we really know about the culture, art and philosophy of this immense civilisation?

After the Olympic Games and before the Shanghai Universal Exhibition in 2010, the four months of europalia.china are an opportunity for the European audience to look beyond the usual clichés to discover the true authentic and artistic dimension of Chinese culture.

For over two years, Europalia has been collaborating with the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China and its excellent network of local partners. A distinguished committee of experts and over 150 cultural partners in Belgium and in Europe have been working to offer the richest and most extensive picture of Chinese cultural and artistic life possible.

The traditional Chinese viewpoint, in all its complexity and originality, fascinates us but it also forces us to take another approach.

In this light, we turned to some essential concepts from Chinese characters for inspiration: the sky (tian), the earth (di), the human being (ren), energy (qi), the mountain (shan), and the path (dao). They represent many expressions which link “past times” to that which is “here and now”. These elements should not be seen as themes of the programme but rather as sources of inspiration in order to give the public a number of keys to approach China from another point of view.

Today, we are proud to present an outline of the programme which will certainly fill out and develop in the months to come.