Mima
The MIMA is a contemporary art Museum, unique of its kind in Europe, that will enable the public to explore a history of culture 2.0.
The Internet, low-cost air travel and the mobile telephone have taken culture away from its territorial locus and made it mobile. As Jeremy Rifkin aptly put it: « One’s sense of being is less anchored to a place than to a state of mind. Cultures are becoming transnational and global, just like commercial and political activity. »
A new kind of cosmopolitanism emerges against this backdrop of galloping globalisation called culture 2.0 here, the multiple identities and affiliations extend to the entire planet.
This culture that is emerging with the Internet at the onset of the new millennium is going viral. Artists nowadays communicate directly with the public. They no longer need intermediaries. The MIMA tells their story.
Concept
The MIMA is a museum of visual arts for the general public, determined to make a contribution to this empathetic, iconoclastic, collaborative, participatory and transversal cultural impetus that lurks inside each and every one of us and is only asking to come out.
The works of art it shows are deliberately free of partitions combining different worlds freely: music cultures (punk-rock, electro, hip hop, folk…), graphics (graphic art, illustration, design), sports (skateboarding, surfing, extreme sports), the arts (cinema, plastic art, performance, comic strip, tattoo, fashion design) and urban art (graffiti, street art).
Stemming essentially from « sub-cultures », such as street art, skateboarding, and graphic art, the artists shown attain remarkable recognition, independently from the network of galleries and art centres.
The place
The MIMA occupies an iconic location in the centre of Brussels: the former Bellevue breweries, along the Canal in Molenbeek, 1300 m2 spread accross 4 floors. The entrance hall is a big room with old red bricks and concrete beams, and houses the reception, which features an eclectic selection of items and the restaurant. The museum then opens onto a space for the projection of video films. The first, second and third floor are dedicated to temporary exhibitions and to the museum’s permanent collection. The 4th floor is reserved for the workshop. The roof affords a panoramic view of the canal.
