EUROPALIA Festival is preparing for its 2025 edition, promising this time to showcase Spanish culture and arts. Visitors will have the opportunity to discover Spain’s well-known artistic heavyweights, from Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes to Pablo Picasso, as well as numerous contemporary Spanish artists, including Candela Capitan, Cristina Garrido, Silvia Pérez Cruz, Maider Lopez, Félix Luque, Mercedes Peon, and many others.
Over 300 events
An international biennial, EUROPALIA is Brussels-based and, every two years, compiles a diverse artistic programme focusing on a selected country or theme. The forthcoming incarnation of the programme is set for 7 October 2025 and will run through 18 January 2026, featuring over 300 events and 20 different exhibitions exploring political, environmental, and social issues. Over the four months of the festival, a wide network of cultural partners will present a vast range of artistic and socio-cultural projects that unite visual arts, performing arts, film, music, literature and debate.
“EUROPALIA examines the complex relationship between beauty and the grotesque in contemporary art, the power of art to critique society, and the resilience of societies in the face of modern challenges,” festival organisers said.
Essential role of art in times of crisis
One of the festival’s highlights will be an exhibition centred around Francisco de Goya, offering “a profound artistic reflection on contemporary challenges and the essential role of art during times of crisis and transformation” through three series of Goya’s engravings.
But despite anchoring on a cultural icon such as Goya, the festival will also be multidisciplinary and decentralised, with cultural events held across the country – from Bruges to Antwerp, as well as Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi, and Liège. Newly commissioned projects and artistic residencies share the programme creating a unique interaction between heritage and art. EUROPALIA will collaborate with about 50 cultural partners, such as BOZAR, KVS, KMSKA, Concertgebouw Brugge, and SMAK.
“Hope and connection”
Christian Salez, EUROPALIA’s general manager, explained why the festival is so significant and relevant. “EUROPALIA is more essential than ever in this divided world,” he said. “It represents hope and connection, proving the power of cultural diplomacy as a means to transcend political boundaries and egos.”
The last edition of the festival in 2023 focused on Georgia and brought together a programme embracing traditions such as polyphonic singing, as well as examining the theme of “remembrance” in relation to the country’s complex soviet past, including how the avant-garde blossomed in Georgia in the early 20th century until censorship and repression drove it underground.
