Between Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia, the cultural year 2025 showed a creative, plural and very lively Belgium – but also more attentive to questions of financing, access and cohesion.
Summary. In 2025, Belgian culture continued to do what it does best: mix languages, scenes and audiences. Brussels has played the heritage and design card (with a strong return of art deco), while remaining a crossroads for contemporary art, comics and cinema. The major festivals have confirmed the country’s place on the European map, from Boom to Dour and Kiewit. But the year was also marked by very concrete debates: subsidies, political stability and public access to an offer that is intended to be “for everyone”.
Brussels, cultural showcase and urban laboratory
In the capital, 2025 has put heritage back at the center of the conversation. The city is told in geometric lines, gilding, glass and modernity: the “art deco year” has multiplied the meetings, with exhibitions and tours which place Brussels in the European history of the style of the 1920s and 1930s. The BELvue museum, for example, highlighted art deco both as a luxury… and as a production that had become accessible to a rapidly changing middle class.
Brussels also continued to do what it has been doing “at home” for a long time: juxtaposing the very institutional and the very popular. A weekend of free jazz on the squares, a large contemporary art fair at Brussels Expo, and — a few metro stations away — smaller venues where new formats are tested, from performance to stand-up, from documentary to hybrid concert.
In this landscape, large houses remain landmarks. At BOZAR, the exhibition Khoros by Berlinde De Bruyckere (presented from February 21 to August 31, 2025) illustrated a strong trend: Belgian artists visible internationally, but also shown “at home”, in a program which assumes the dialogue between contemporary, art history and broad audiences.
Contemporary art: Brussels confirms its place
On the market and the stage, Brussels has continued its transformation: less “city of passage” than before, more a rear base for galleries, artists and collectors. The fair Art Brussels has, in 2025, insisted on discovery and the unprecedented, with a strong international presence, while maintaining a Belgian anchorage. The recipe works because it marries the local DNA: a city where we go from French to Dutch (and English) without the creation apologizing for being multiple.
Living scenes: when Brussels “becomes a school”
The performing arts also set the tone. Kunstenfestivaldesarts celebrated its 30the edition from May 9 to 31, 2025, recalling that Brussels is not only an administrative capital: it is a city of theater, dance and performance, where the international is experienced on a daily basis.
And when the end of May comes, the music comes outside. THE Brussels Jazz Weekend (from May 23 to 25, 2025) has maintained its formula: free concerts, large squares and small stages, mixing of generations — a simple way of making culture “practical,” without unnecessary barriers.
A summer of festivals: from Boom to Dour, from Kiewit to… everywhere
Belgium confirmed in 2025 that it remains a country of festivals — in the broad sense, and not just for those in the know. Summer is a cultural geography in itself: we cross provinces as we cross styles.
- Tomorrowland at Boom (two weekends, July 18 to 20 and July 25 to 27, 2025) recalled its power of global attraction. The edition was marked by a spectacular event: the fire which destroyed the main stage a few days before the opening, without causing any injuries, and the continuation of the festival with adapted solutions.
- Dour Festival (from July 16 to 20, 2025) continued to defend a “big gap” programming, capable of aligning electronic music, rap, rock and experiments, with a very Belgian identity: open, without snobbery.
- Pukkelpop in Kiewit (Hasselt), from August 14 to 17, 2025, continued its tradition: diversity of stages, big names and discoveries, and logistics designed for large crowds — including via event trains.
Alongside these behemoths, Belgian culture 2025 has also been told through “neighborhood” and diaspora festivals, which make a clear difference in inclusion and representation. In Brussels, for example, the Afrodisiac Festival (Bois de la Cambre) highlighted the creativity of the African diaspora, between music, gastronomy and workshops, in a city where culture is also written with communities.
Cinema and comics: two Belgian signatures that never go out of fashion
Belgium 2025 is also a cultural identity that comes through images: on the big screen and in the bubbles. THE Brussels International Film Festival (BRIFF) was held from June 20 to 28, 2025, confirming Brussels’ place as a showcase for European and French-speaking cinema, but also as a place for public debates around contemporary stories.
In Ghent, Film Fest Gent (from October 8 to 19, 2025) announced a structuring novelty: the introduction of Flanders Film Days ahead of the festival, a sign of a sector that wants to combine creation, industry and international visibility. The 2025 list confirmed the attention paid to social issues, with a Grand Prize awarded to The Voice of Hind Rajab (Kaouther Ben Hania), according to the festival.
And then, obviously, there are comics — a shared national pride, from Brussels to Charleroi, from Liège to the coast. THE BD Comic Strip Festival has, in 2025, brought the public together around exhibitions, meetings and prizes, reminding us that comics are not just a heritage: it is also a creative industry and a common language between generations.
The crux of the matter: budgets, stability, access
This picture would be incomplete without the question that arises everywhere in Europe – and “a fortiori” in Belgium: how do we finance culture, and with what priorities?
In 2025, several signals showed increasing nervousness. In Flanders, the decision on the allocation of socio-cultural subsidies (for continuing education and community life organizations) was postponed, fueling a public debate on the role and legitimacy of this funding. In Brussels, the long regional political impasse has also weighed on the ecosystem, creating uncertainty over certain allocations and the continuity of projects. In a federal country, culture depends a lot on the levels of power: when the machine seizes up, the structures — especially the smallest — quickly feel it.
For cultural actors, the challenge is twofold: guaranteeing ambitious creation, and maintaining real accessibility (price, mobility, dissemination, mediation). In short: prevent culture from becoming a luxury. As such, free or very affordable formats (open-air jazz, heritage trails, neighborhood festivals) remain a Belgian strength in 2025 — and a real social choice.
A “Belgian style” Belgian culture: plural, close, and not always in agreement
Belgian culture, in 2025, cannot be reduced to a postcard image. It is made of compromises, frictions, translations and cohabitations. It’s sometimes complicated, but it’s also an asset: you can live twenty minutes from a major exhibition, an electro scene, a theater festival or a comic book meeting. And, “once”, that is perhaps the true Belgian singularity: a cultural density which forces you to choose… even when you would really like to do everything in a single week (or even over seventy-two hours).
Publicado anteriormente en Almouwatin.
