Festival Boutures Returns to La Balsamine: Xeno- Curates a Bold Exploration of Mental Health and Systemic Inequality

On June 6 and 7, La Balsamine Theatre in Brussels will host the second edition of its Festival Boutures, an event dedicated to expanding artistic horizons and sparking collective reflection. This year, the festival invites the dynamic Xeno- platform to take over its programming, focusing on the vital intersection between mental health and systemic inequalities.

A Space for Imagination and Collective Growth

Festival Boutures is more than an event—it’s an invitation. Each year, La Balsamine hands over the reins to a collective, encouraging them to transform the end of the season into a unique bouquet of artistic expression. The result is a fertile ground for new processes, wild ideas, and communal celebrations.

For 2025, the honor goes to Xeno-, an itinerant artistic platform and practical research laboratory founded in 2019 by Ichraf Nasri and Mélanie Peduzzi. Rooted in Brussels, Xeno- is committed to intersectional feminist questions and to amplifying the voices of artists who escape hegemonic masculinity and whiteness. The collective was born from the urgent need to address the underrepresentation of women, racialized, queer, and non-binary artists in the arts scene.

Mental Health and Systemic Violence: A Collective Response

On June 6 and 7, Xeno- will curate two days of workshops, performances, talks, and screenings, all centered on the complex relationships between mental health and systemic oppression. The festival will ask urgent questions: What structural violence weighs on our minds? How do systems of oppression—racism, sexism, capitalism, imperialism—shape our psychological suffering?

But Xeno- goes beyond diagnosis. Their vision for Festival Boutures is a collective act of resistance, highlighting experiences and care practices rooted in decolonial, antiracist, and anticapitalist feminist struggles.

A Rich and Diverse Program

The festival will feature around fifteen events, including:

• A conversation with historian and political scientist Françoise Vergès on state policies targeting the bodies of racialized women.
• A performance by poet Selim-a Atallah Chettaoui, whose work interrogates the links between identity and contemporary social and political realities.
• A “literary massage” in which Julie Lombe and Raïssa Yowali blend their words with the hands of therapists to offer a unique sensory experience.
• A screening of the documentary “Ex Utero” by Lili Forestier, addressing gynecological and obstetric violence.
• …and much more.

Join the Conversation

Festival Boutures 2025 promises to be a vibrant space for both reflection and action, inviting the public to question, experience, and imagine new forms of solidarity and care. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to engage with some of today’s most urgent artistic and social questions.

Dates: June 6 & 7, 2025
Locatie: La Balsamine Theatre, Brussels
Curated by: Xeno- (Ichraf Nasri & Mélanie Peduzzi)

For more information and the full program, visit La Balsamine’s website.