If you’ve walked past Gare du Midi recently, you may have stopped dead in your tracks at the sight of this. Sprawling across the full width of a railway underpass near the intersection of Rue des Vétérinaires and Avenue des Rois, MOTION is one of the most ambitious pieces of street art Brussels has seen in years.
The mural was commissioned by Cirque du Soleil to mark their Brussels residency with Alegría – In A New Light, a reimagined version of their legendary 1994 show. Rather than just plastering posters around the city, they went big, collaborating with the municipality of Saint-Gilles, designer Sam Billen of Treepack, and painter Wannes Vrijs of Wallievis to create something permanent.
And permanent is the right word. This isn’t a pop-up activation that disappears when the circus leaves town. The swirling acrobatic figures, rendered in rich terracotta and electric blue with muscles twisting mid-flight, are now a fixture of the Saint-Gilles streetscape. A nod to Cirque du Soleil’s roots as a street performance troupe in the 1980s, painted on a wall that thousands of commuters pass every single day.
Saint-Gilles was a natural choice. The municipality has deep ties to circus arts, being home to Espace Catastrophe, the École du Cirque, and Trapèze vzw. Mayor Jean Spinette saw the project as a way to both celebrate that heritage and breathe some color into the grey concrete surroundings of the South Station. On both counts, mission accomplished.
The sheer scale of it is what gets you. Standing at street level, with a lone pedestrian disappearing into the tunnel beneath those giant figures, you get a real sense of just how massive and how meticulously painted this thing is. Worth a detour if you’re anywhere near Gare du Midi.
???? Near Rue des Vétérinaires / Avenue des Rois, Saint-Gilles, Brussels
???? Design: Sam Billen / Treepack | Painting: Wannes Vrijs / Wallievis | Commission: Cirque du Soleil