Beldavia

Beldavia. Your new home, an interactive and engaging exhibition, to be discovered at La Fonderie – Brussels Museum of Industry and Labor, from October 16, 2025, to June 28, 2026. In the fall of 2025, La Fonderie will welcome Beldavia. Your new home base, an interactive and critical action exhibition that combines fiction and current events to bring to life for visitors the many difficulties migrants face in their attempts to find decent housing and obtain recognized status in Belgium. This project is the result of a collective effort by the non-profit organization Quizas, in collaboration with the non-profit organization Lire et Écrire Bruxelles and literacy students from the non-profit organization La Rue—a long-standing partner of La Fonderie in the Old Molenbeek neighborhood—and is based on real testimonies to offer a participatory, immersive, and meaningful experience. The exhibition takes visitors to the year 2029 and puts them in the shoes of migrants who have fled Belgium to seek refuge in Beldavia, an imaginary, foreign country that welcomes them with open arms but whose language, culture, rules, and laws they do not know. At the start of their journey, participants assume a fictional identity (political refugee, economic migrant, or person in a family reunification situation). Equipped with an electronic access card, they must navigate a journey fraught with pitfalls. In a country that looks like paradise, they are confronted with an administrative labyrinth and an endless series of obstacles similar to those encountered by migrants in Belgium. Through digital devices, physical installations, and absurd situations, the experience highlights the issues of access to housing, obtaining legal status, and, more broadly, integration. After a stop at the Cinex in Namur in October 2024, the Beldavia exhibition moves to Brussels, to a location closely linked to social and urban struggles: La Fonderie. La Fonderie was born out of the urban activism of the 1970s in Brussels, which was committed to the restoration of old industrial and working-class neighborhoods, the right to the city for all, and the defense of the most vulnerable residents, including many immigrants. Today, La Fonderie continues this commitment through its museum and permanent educational activities. Founded in 1983 on the site of a former art foundry in Molenbeek, the institution sheds light on the industrial and social history of the capital, highlighting and fueling debate on the city's contemporary issues. Hosting a committed project such as Beldavia is therefore fully in line with its mission: to raise awareness of urban issues and reflect the social reality of the neighborhood and the city. This exhibition is also part of a strong educational approach. Designed as an interdisciplinary tool, Beldavia has a particular resonance with high school students. By drawing on a number of disciplines—history, geography, citizenship, social sciences, etc.—it offers a practical, critical, and participatory approach to important social issues such as migration, the right to housing, social integration, and civic engagement. It is also intended for higher education students, groups, associations, families, and anyone who wants to have a moving and thought-provoking experience on major social issues.