Culture beat: 26 June

Urban arts centre Recyclart launched its annual summer holiday programme with lively and offbeat activities every Thursday and Friday evening, until 31 July. Activities take place inside and outside the Brussels Chapelle station venue including concerts, exhibitions, workshops, bread making, knitting, barbecues and other events. As usual, most activities are free or at a minimal cost. Check out the programme for full details.

The free family Festival Plazey continues until Sunday with activities for all ages at Elisabeth Park, Koekelberg. This evening (Friday) there’s an aperitif, free cycle repairs and concerts, from 19.00; more music on Saturday, plus a dance performance and outdoor  film screening at 22.00; and join a Sunday brunch at 10.00, followed by mini golf, games and an Afro-Brazilian dance workshop. The festival is eco-friendly.

Freedom is the theme of the fifth edition of Festival Musiq3 at Flagey and Marni this weekend. The Brussels leg of the moveable musical feast Festival of Wallonia offers 50 concerts with more than 200 artists. Largely classical in content, the programme nevertheless includes jazz and 3activities for all the family. Among the highlights are violinist Lorenzo Gatto, cellist Marie Hallynck, singer Jodie Devos, pianist Natacha Kudritskaya and the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège. Festival guest is Turkish pianist Fazil Say.

Bozar is hosting a preview screening of the French-language  Le Petit Prince on Sunday afternoon. The film projection at 15.00 is preceded by an origami workshop at 14.00. Mark Osborne’s film is an adaptation of the Antoine Saint-Exupéry classic. From five and up.

Join a free public debate on The Future of the Arab World at Bozar on Tuesday (30 June), from 18.00 to 20.00. Top Arab leaders discuss the future of their countries in live video stream with simultaneous English/French translation. Representing the EU are former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt and political analyst Koert Debeuf. Belgian MEP and former vice president of the European Parliament Isabelle Durant moderates.

Professional networking club Full Circle wraps up its season on 8 July with communications expert Robert Phillips presenting Change, the only agency you need. Says Phillips, whose latest book Trust ME, PR is Dead: “It is time to call ‘bullshit' at what had become the bullshit industry.” The former UK chief executive of the world’s largest PR firm questions the establishment and the future of traditional industries and disciplines. Join the dinner debate to find out more. The Brussels club that combines talk, networking and fun over a three-course meal launches its new season on 21 September. The location of the 8 July dinner-debate will be disclosed a few days before the event.

Mons

The city’s renovated Mundaneum opens to the public tomorrow with the exhibition Mapping Knowledge. This highly-original museum in Rue de Nimy houses the world’s first networked library, recognised as the precursor of the digital search engine. Not surprisingly it’s a very Belgian story involving two visionaries Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine, who founded the collection in 1895 in what is today the Autoworld museum in Brussels. The project was later revived and moved to Mons, in partnership naturally with Google which runs a data centre nearby. Celebrating the pair’s original work and providing a space for contemporary knowledge, the museum renovation is part of the Mons 2015 European Capital of Culture. The exhibition is an interactive journey through knowledge maps and takes a look at the complex nature of the world today.