Out with the new, in with the old: a guide to DIY Day

Back for its fifth year, this Saturday, 6 June, Brussels’ DIY Day returns to the MicroMarché. DIY Day celebrates all that is old, reused and recycled with workshops, music, exhibitions and performances in Belgium’s most hands-on festival.

Taking place in and around the MicroMarché in the Ste. Catherine neighbourhood, in collaboration with Bronks theatre’s C’est Party!, DIY Day is more than just tinkering with bicycles and spare parts. It’s about exploring the creative limits of do-your-selfing and creating a space for people to share knowledge and skills to teach one another about ways to reduce consumption by giving new life to old materials.

Repairing and repurposing

The DIY Day festival centres around five broad themes: society, culture, ecology, alternative economies and technology. One feature that each of these themes shares is the importance of learning to use what’s already available. So the day is filled with workshops with creative ideas what to do with old materials.

Rule number one: fix what’s broken. Throughout the day, the festival will feature various repair workshops, including bicycle repairs where you can come in and consult with experts.

If you don’t find what you’re looking for at the DIY Day, you’re in luck. The Ancienne Belgique on Boulevard d’Anspach will also be holding a repair café on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Along with bicycles, there you’ll also find help with electronics, clothing, carpentry and more.

Rule number two: if it can’t be fixed, find something else to do with it. This is where things get creative. At the DIY Day, you’ll learn from artisans and artists alike about how to repurpose old goods, whether it’s worn out clothing turning into handy sacks or pillowcases or discarded refuse reclaimed for works of art. In the spirit of found and used materials, various art exhibitions and installations will show inspiring ways in which items that no longer hold monetary value can be reformatted and regain aesthetic value.

This leads to the creative soul of the festival: the Micro Factory. This factory found in the MichoMarché invites anyone driven to build, barter or invent to join an open community of creation, exploration and experimentation and make new things in real time.

Learning self-sufficiency

So much of what we buy, we could make ourselves, and a driving force behind DIY Day is to show you how possible this is. From piñata building to beer brewing to silk screening, this is the space to learn skills you’ve perhaps never considered skills before. 

For those with a culinary bent, one interesting workshop is the Disco Soup, which asks you to join in the peel, cutting and cooking of discarded fruits and vegetables to make a totally free meal. Music will play to keep you moving along as you cook.

A free space

At the heart of DIY Day is the principle of a sharing economy: what has lost value to one person is converted into something of value for the next. For this reason, the festival avoids dealing in euros and instead deals in a currency of experience and know-how. In the end, you get a collaboration where every individual has her own skill set to offer and where the work of many can be shared freely with all.

MicroMarché, Quai à la Houille 9, 6 June, 13:00 to 22:00