In the summer of 1996, a few months before the re-opening of the former Cinéma Arenberg, abandoned for 10 years and now rehabilitated as Nova Cinema (originally destined to exist for only 2 years), the Kino-Trotter association organized "Cinéma Légumen", with the support of Beursschouwburg. Three weekends of outdoor screenings in various empty spaces along boulevard Emile Jacqmain that had been temporarily converted into gardens by the Légumen foundation.
The following summer, Nova Cinema had already been around for 6 months and was closing its doors for a few weekends. renewing the open air cinema experience of Cinéma Légumen. This time, however, the outdoor screenings were set up at Place des Wallons, in front of the ’la Chapelle’ train station, thereby garnering the name "Cinema at the Station".
In 1998 this Nova Cinema summer experience joined forces for the first time with the association City Mine(d) and became the ’PleinOPENair’. The project went beyond just being a free, outdoor screening event and became a mobile festival with a true urban dimension. The summer program was established around one or several transitional sites or neighborhoods in Brussels, in spaces with potential or unrecognized audiences that were looking for ways to invest their energies. By doing so, it shed some light on a series of urban and social issues (changes in the urban landscape, housing difficulties, renovation problems, abandoned buildings, work done on potential sites or on public space or the city’s history...).
The PleinOPENair is a festive event that incites interaction with and reflection on the city. Unusual in its scope and atmosphere, the festival program puts into perspective the issues surrounding certain urban sites and offers a chance to build bridges with other urban activists and movements, all while developing a creative practice that can be expressed in the public sphere (which encompasses everything from the walls of the city to the newspaper, radio waves, the streets, etc...). And by doing so, to deconstruct the codes that dominate the urban development field in order to make space for the imagination and to promote citizen participation.
By investing in one or several symbolic sites, PleinOPENair builds connections with other urban causes. Its method is to decrypt and add clarity to the big debates surrounding urbanism, especially to those that, for example, have resulted in the "urban catastrophes" of Brussels.
Here are some of the steps already taken by this traveling project: ’le Quartier Maritime’ (Molenbeek), the ’Ecole des Vétérinaires’ in Cureghem (Anderlecht), the esplanade and gardens of the ’Cité Administrative’ (Brussels), the ’Quartier Léopold’ (Ixelles), Gauchere. square (Schaerbeek), the Prince Albert barracks (Brussels), the ’Théâtre de Verdure’ (Brussels), the ’impasse de la Tête de Boeuf ’ (Brussels). Martini tower (Schaerbeek), ’Tour et Taxis’ (Molenbeek), the European Parliament esplanade (Ixelles), the Moeraske natural reserve (Evere), the ’Quartier Midi’ (Saint-Gilles), etc.
Since then, a new building for the National Theatre has replaced the empty lot where Cinéma Légumen once took place. The association Recyclart has developed its project in the Chappelle station, and Beursschouwburg has been entirely renovated and transformed, with a new team...
For 8 years, PleinOPENair was a co-production between Nova and City Mine(d) that focused on numerous neighbourhoods and sites in Brussels that were undergoing urban transitions. During this time, the project multiplied its collaborations with various organizations. Over the summer in 2004, the project established its home in the ’Cité administrative’ of the Belgian government (a complex established in the Northern part of Brussels to house the various administrative buildings of the Belgian government), long since emptied of its occupants.
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