‘Discussion rooms’

BOZAR’s partners invite speakers to come and reflect in a more restricted circle on one of the issues of the SUPERDEMOCRACY. The Senate of Things exhibition in four discussion rooms.
Discussion rooms will be held on Saturday or Sunday in a Senate committee room. Seats are limited.
For this series of events BOZAR AGORA collaborates with Culture Action Europe, Full Circle and the Omar Khayam Cultural Center.

PROGRAMME:

Sunday October 8 (14:00-15:00): Stéphane Roy
For this discussion room, the Cultural Center Omar Khayam will give the floor to Stéphane Roy (artist, curator and coordinator of the Centre Culturel Omar Khayam). The objective of the center is to create spaces open to dialogue, critical approaches, understanding and socio-cultural exchanges. Stéphane Roy is mainly interested in intercultural issues. He will talk about diversity and transdisciplinarity in artistic and sociocultural practices, in a dialogue with the starting point that art is a pillar in our democratic society and a vector of social and cultural transformation. Stéphane Roy will be accompanied by Pauline Hatzigeorgiou (art historian, curator and mediator at ISELP), Latifa Elmcabeni (involved in social cohesion projects in the Brussels Capital Region) and Said Elouizi (activist on the migration theme).
This Discussion Room will be French spoken.

Saturday October 14 (14:00-15:00): Scott Atran
Anthropologist Scott Atran discusses his work on extremism and what can be done to restore open values. In the face of the repeated terrorist attacks our societies have faced in recent years, the challenge for our democracies is to provide convincing and powerful alternatives to satisfy the quest for glory that motivates those who commit acts of extreme violence, including youth.
Scott Atran is among the most innovative thinkers in the field of terrorism and radicalisation and has long, direct experience in speaking with terrorists, Islamic fundamentalists, political leaders, and disaffected youth. He has looked at Islamic extremism, the ways in which it functions and how to best act against it.

Saturday October 14 (15:30-16:30): Katherine Heid and Timothy King
In this salon, we build on the Senate’s role as a place of reflection. Taking our cue from the works of art in the Senate, we consider how culture informs our understanding. There is more to democracy than the mechanics of voting, so what is the place of reflection and imagination? Is culture an essential element of superdemocracy? Or could it be that questions of cultural identity – shared or differentiated – constitute a barrier to developing our thinking about democracy?
Katherine Heid is the deputy secretary-general of Culture Action Europe and has an academic background in psychology. Timothy King is a journalist with long experience of observing the British, Belgian and European Union versions of democracy.

Sunday October 22 (14:00-15:00): Julian Baggini
European democracies often face the challenge of how to harmonise unity and diversity both in practice and theory. Could we learn anything from other societies? Could we be inspired by China, where harmony is the supreme ethical and political value? The Confucian meaning of harmony is sometimes lost both in translation and in its appropriation by the Chinese government to justify its actions. However, if properly understood, harmony is a value that could help a diverse Europe balance unity and diversity. Philosopher Julian Baggini shares inspiring thoughts for European concordia.

Saturday October 28 (14:00-15:00): Hafsat Abiola-Costello
Hafsat Abiola-Costello is an acclaimed human rights and democracy activist. Through her nonprofit, the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND), Hafsat is building a groundswell of women and youth leaders in Nigeria. Her work is a tribute to her parents, who died in the course of Nigeria's pro-democracy movement.
Since age 19, she has been promoting democracy, gender equality and an equitable framework for global governance through organizations as diverse as the State of the World Forum, Amnesty International, Earth Watch, World Economic Forum, Chime for Change and the World Future Council.