KANAL–Centre Pompidou will open its doors in Brussels on 28 November 2026. To inaugurate this former Citroën garage transformed into a museum, the institution will present ten exhibitions devoted to modern and contemporary art, architecture, colonial memory and the political issues shaping our time. From the major exhibition A truly immense journey to installations by Otobong Nkanga, Banu Cennetoğlu, Joëlle Tuerlinckx and Joshua Serafin, ART MAG presents the highlights not to be missed.
The opening of KANAL–Centre Pompidou is drawing closer. Housed in the former Citroën garage beside the Brussels canal, the new museum will welcome its first visitors on 28 November 2026.
For its inauguration, KANAL has chosen not to focus all attention on a single blockbuster exhibition. Instead, the institution will present ten complementary projects: nine exhibitions organised by KANAL and one major exhibition dedicated to architecture.
The programme will bring the Centre Pompidou’s collections into dialogue with the Belgian and international art scenes, while giving an important place to the history of Brussels, its industrial and colonial past, and the debates shaping society today.
While A truly immense journey is likely to emerge as the centrepiece of the opening, both in scale and in the number of works on display, the projects by Otobong Nkanga and Banu Cennetoğlu may prove to be among the most memorable, thanks to their collective and political dimensions.
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A truly immense journey: More Than 350 Works Brought Together in Brussels
Featuring more than 350 works, A truly immense journey is the flagship exhibition of KANAL’s opening. Most of the works come from the Centre Pompidou’s collections, supplemented by pieces belonging to KANAL and several Belgian public and private collections.
The exhibition will bring together major figures of modern art, including Lygia Clark, Sonia Delaunay, Henri Matisse, Wifredo Lam, Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti. Their works will enter into dialogue with those of contemporary artists from the Brussels and international art scenes, such as Sammy Baloji, Edith Dekyndt, Aglaia Konrad and Hana Miletić.
The exhibition will not, however, present a conventional chronological history of art. Instead, it will explore the circulation of people, ideas and artistic practices from the 1900s to the present day. Migration, the movement of forms and colonial legacies will be among the recurring themes guiding visitors through the collections.
A truly immense journey will also launch a series of long-term exhibitions offering audiences in Brussels an evolving selection of works from the Centre Pompidou.
From 28 November 2026 to 10 January 2028.
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An infinite woman: Revisiting Citroën’s Colonial History
This exhibition is directly connected to the history of the building that now houses KANAL.
In 1925, the portrait of a Mangbetu woman from north-eastern Congo became one of the emblems of the Croisière Noire, a colonial expedition organised by Citroën across the African continent. A few years later, the car manufacturer built the monumental garage in Brussels that has now been transformed into a museum.
Entitled An infinite woman – Black archives in two acts, the exhibition examines the creation and circulation of this colonial imagery. It also considers how artists of African descent have reclaimed these representations in order to question and transform them, and to create alternative narratives.
Works by Raphaël Barontini, Sonia Barrett, Roméo Mivekannin, Faith Ringgold, Carrie Mae Weems, Frida Orupabo and Barbara Walker will address questions of representation, memory and transmission.
More than a historical examination, the exhibition confronts the new museum directly with the darker aspects of the building it has inherited.
From 28 November 2026 to 26 April 2027.
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Joëlle Tuerlinckx at KANAL: Experiencing a First Time
To inaugurate KANAL, Joëlle Tuerlinckx has chosen one of the museum’s most unusual spaces: a room situated at foundation level.
After observing the transformation of the former Citroën garage over several years, the Belgian artist has devised an installation composed of light, sounds, voices and traces left by the construction work. These different elements will alter the way visitors perceive and move through the space.
Entitled La première fois, the work reflects a practice developed by Joëlle Tuerlinckx since the 1980s, exploring the relationships between time, space and perception.
Rather than presenting an object to contemplate, the artist proposes an attentive experience of the building and the evidence of its successive transformations.
From 28 November 2026 to 29 March 2027.
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Manon de Boer: Listening Rather Than Looking
With Blindsight, Manon de Boer invites visitors to slow down and give their full attention to sound.
Developed with choreographer Latifa Laâbissi and sound designer Laszlo Umbreit, the installation reverses the usual hierarchy between image and listening. Seated in a cinema chair, visitors encounter a soundscape broadcast through various devices, including loudspeakers concealed inside vases.
This sensory proposition extends Manon de Boer’s research into cinema, music and dance. It also questions our relationship with duration in a cultural environment often dominated by speed and the proliferation of images.
From 28 November 2026 to 29 March 2027.
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Joshua Serafin: The Body Between Migration, Memory and Identity
For the opening of KANAL, Joshua Serafin will present Whispering pleas of the eternal echoes, a video installation specially conceived for the museum.
Moving between the Philippines and Belgium, the artist brings together several generations and different narratives to explore questions of origin, migration and belonging.
At the crossroads of choreography, cinema, installation, sculpture and sound, Joshua Serafin’s practice considers the body as a territory in constant transformation. It becomes both the place where family and collective legacies are inscribed and the point from which new identities can be constructed.
The installation is likely to offer one of the most physical and immersive experiences in the inaugural programme.
From 28 November 2026 to 29 March 2027.
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Département des Pièges: Eleven Brussels Museums Bring Their Collections Together
The title of the exhibition echoes Marcel Broodthaers’ celebrated Département des Aigles.
With Département des Pièges – Metabolic Museum-University, curator Clémentine Deliss brings together historical objects, paintings and contemporary creations around the notions of traps, decoys and trompe-l’œil.
One of the project’s defining features is the origin of the works on display. Eleven Brussels museums are participating in the exhibition, including the AfricaMuseum, Design Museum Brussels, Horta Museum and Museum of Ixelles.
Their collections will enter into dialogue with contemporary works by Guillaume Bijl, Kasper Bosmans, Aline Bouvy, Pélagie Gbaguidi, Otobong Nkanga and Valérie Mannaerts.
Beyond the visual interplay suggested by its title, the exhibition will examine the ways in which objects are classified, interpreted and presented within museums.
From 28 November 2026 to 31 May 2027.
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NO SHOW: Does a Museum Necessarily Have to Entertain?
Can an exhibition still exist without giving in to the logic of spectacle? This is the question posed by Deborah Bowmann, Maoupa Mazzocchetti and around twenty Brussels-based artists invited to occupy five spaces within KANAL.
Art, light, sound and performance will form a journey that deliberately blurs the boundaries between exhibition and spectacle, reality and fiction.
The question has particular resonance in a museum of monumental proportions that is set to become one of Brussels’ major new cultural centres. How can it attract a broad audience without turning the artistic experience into mere entertainment? And how can it preserve a place for experimentation within an institution facing high expectations in terms of visitor numbers?
Behind its apparent playfulness, NO SHOW may therefore prove to be one of the opening programme’s most critical propositions.
From 28 November 2026 to 18 January 2027.
Banu Cennetoğlu: Staging the Fragility of Human Rights
With right?, Banu Cennetoğlu transforms the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into bouquets of golden letter-shaped balloons.
For the opening of KANAL, the thirty articles will be presented simultaneously for the first time. The work is nevertheless designed to change over time. The balloons will gradually deflate, their surfaces will lose their shine and the letters will eventually become distorted.
The fragile, almost festive materiality of the installation contrasts with the seriousness of its subject. It reminds us that fundamental rights, even when they appear to be universally recognised, can weaken when they are no longer defended.
Presented in Brussels, at the heart of the European institutions, the work takes on a particularly powerful political significance.
From 28 November 2026 to 24 May 2027.
Otobong Nkanga: A Collective Work in Perpetual Construction
Otobong Nkanga will transform one of KANAL’s large open spaces into a place of encounter, transmission and collective creation.
Gathered around wooden looms, specially trained participants will work together to produce a piece that will continue to evolve throughout the exhibition. The threads will intertwine like the experiences, gestures and stories of those taking part in the project.
Weaving thus becomes a means for the artist to examine labour, the use of resources, knowledge-sharing and the social responsibilities of a cultural institution.
By placing collective action at the heart of the museum, Otobong Nkanga moves beyond the customary separation between artists, artworks and the public. Her project may become one of KANAL’s liveliest and most accessible spaces.
Admission to the installation will be free of charge.
From 28 November 2026 to 19 April 2027.
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Right to the City – Right to the Future: Imagining the Future of Brussels
Architecture forms the tenth part of the inaugural programme.
Organised by KANAL Architecture, Right to the City – Right to the Future will connect the history of the surrounding neighbourhoods with several contemporary issues: the climate crisis, circularity, gender and the legacies of colonialism.
The exhibition will combine documents from the CIVA’s historical collections with new research and eight contemporary commissions. It will be extended through a programme of approximately fifty events, as well as workshops designed for a range of audiences.
More than a presentation of architectural projects, the exhibition considers the city as a shared political space. In particular, it raises the question of how residents can participate in the transformation of Brussels and exercise their right to imagine its future.
From 28 November 2026 to 14 March 2027.
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Which Exhibitions Should You See First at KANAL–Centre Pompidou?
With these ten propositions, KANAL is not simply seeking to showcase the scale of its new spaces or the richness of the Centre Pompidou’s collections. From the outset, the museum is asserting an identity of its own, closely connected to Brussels, its industrial and colonial history, and contemporary political and social debates.
Given its scale, A truly immense journey is likely to attract the largest audiences. It will provide the best starting point for discovering the museum and understanding the dialogue KANAL intends to establish between modern collections and contemporary creation.
Visitors interested in colonial history may then wish to prioritise An infinite woman, while the installations by Banu Cennetoğlu and Otobong Nkanga are likely to offer two of the opening’s most socially and politically engaged experiences. The more experimental projects by Joëlle Tuerlinckx and Manon de Boer will provide alternative ways of approaching architecture, time and perception.
From 28 November 2026, KANAL will face a dual challenge: establishing itself as an international cultural destination while preserving a genuinely Brussels-based identity. Its inaugural programme already demonstrates that the new museum intends to be far more than an extension of the Centre Pompidou.
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