Live art mural at Brussels’ Bockstael station celebrates International Women’s Day

Brussels-based French street artist Anthea Missy is painting a fresco at Bockstael station in Laeken from 6 to 10 March to mark International Women’s Day on Wednesday.

The collaborative art project was inspired by discussions with station users and workshops with neighbourhood children and local non-profit community organisations. The public is invited to visit the site during the live painting.

A temporary installation, it will be sold after one year and the funds donated to an association active in women's rights. An initiative of Brussels Mobility and the city’s public transport operator Stib, it will be repeated with other artists in the coming years. They plan to launch a call for projects soon.

Anthea Missy (pictured above) is a multidisciplinary artist who paints medium to large scale works in cities in Europe and Asia. Her art explores concepts related to love, the environment, LGBTQI+ rights, freedom and equality. Her style is characterised by fluid organic lines and a minimalist colour palette.

Pledge to ‘feminise’ network

Brussels Mobility and Stib are also naming and renaming bus and tram stops after notable women in a bid to ‘feminise’ the network.

Following the creation of new lines and the bus plan, 13 stops have been given women’s names, with five more to be added in 2023 and 2024. The Invalides stop (bus 72) will become Ginette Javaux. On line 43, the Pasteur stop will bear the name Jacqueline Harpman. The Ring 0 stop will become Henriette Lauwers and two other new stops will bear the names of Akarova and Juliette Wytsman.

Brussels mobility minister Elke Van den Brandt said: "Increasing the presence of women in our public space is essential both to make inspiring female personalities visible and to make our public space more inclusive. I'm delighted that, little by little, Brussels makes these extraordinary women visible in order to offer future generations new role models."

The city’s transport network boasts a large collection of public artworks, but only a few by women artists. They include the metal cable structure Voûtes flexible by Tapta in Veeweyde metro station (Anderlecht); Four Size Available See Over, a multicoloured tile installation by Berlinde De Bruyckere at Simonis (pictured above), and Dyade by Françoise Schein at Parvis de Saint-Gilles metro station, a blue ceramic tile mosaic that evokes the relation between European borders and humans rights.

Photos: (main image) A recent work by Anthea Missy at Leopold 1er school, Laeken 'Women Bike the City'; Anthea Missy by Anaelle Antoine; Berlinde De Bruckere artwork at Simonis, Stib