Culture beat – April 4

A popular spring rendezvous for flower lovers is the annual Floralia at Groot-Bijgaarden. The castle grounds and their blaze of colour are open from April 4 to May 8. The 14-hectare grounds, just north of Brussels, are carpeted with more than 400 varieties of tulips and numerous other blooms, including narcissi and violets, and azaleas and rhododendrons from Exbury  Gardens in south-west England. The park’s 1,000m greenhouses contain floral arrangements that change theme every Friday under the direction of Dutch artist Hans Danko. A fabulous display of orchids can be found in the historic chapel. The moated castle, dating from the 13th century, is a hidden gem.

If you missed the Museum of Natural Science’s Baby Animals exhibition, due to wrap last month, fear not, it has been extended by popular demand. Not only does it feature über-cute eye candy in the form of toys, photos, films and life-like (but, alas, stuffed) specimens, but it is also presented in a way that allows human kids to identify with their critter counterparts, to see childhood as a universal process of growth and learning. Interactive consoles and games are an integral part of the experience. Although the presentation is tailor-made for kids aged three to 8, frankly anyone with a beating heart can enjoy this stuff. Be warned, however, that hourly capacity is limited and may max out during the school holidays and weekends. Until June 11.

Forget Halloween, the scariest place around is the BIFF (Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival) at Bozar from April 8 to 20. More than 100 horror, sci-fi and fantasy films, a Fantastic Night  (four movies and breakfast), plus the usual festival village, body painting contest, street theatre, comic strip stand and more at the 32nd edition of this boisterous annual event.

There are plenty of kids’ activities at Bozar until April 28, specially linked to the arts centre’s  headline exhibition Michaël Borremans: As sweet as it gets. There are discovery trails  (from six years), one-day workshops (6 to 12), a Family Day on April 27 (three and up). A new initiative for families is ZOOM. When they visit the Borremans show, children receive special ‘key’ which renders the exhibition more accessible via key words and challenges. Since the exhibition opened just over a month ago, it has attracted record crowds. The contemporary Belgian artist likes to refer to historic paintings by artists such as Velázquez, Goya, and Manet, in addition to literature, photography ad film. The retrospective includes a hundred of his works from the past 20 years: drawings, paintings and film.

 Twenty years after the Rwandan genocide, numerous events mark the brutal killing of almost 1 million people. Among them, the travelling exhibition Les Hommes debout (The Upright Men) which runs from April 7 to 14 at the Hotel de Ville in the Grand‘Place. Visual artist Bruce Clarke pays homage to the victims in a series of paintings of men, women and children who stand upright, larger than life. Depicted against background of memorial sites in Rwanda and other symbolic places around the world, they represent a lost people and their dignity in the face of inhumane crime. The exhibition is being displayed in Rwanda, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg and other countries around the world.