But do they really belong there? This topic is high on the agenda of the fifth edition of Kaaitheater’s Burning Ice, a festival of art and ecology. Once again, the Brussels venue has programmed a mind-expanding selection of performances, lectures and exhibitions, this time investigating the rising tension between nature and culture. Artists, scientists and other experts will gather around the theme “We The Gardeners”.

Take the project of the French designer Damien Chivalle. He puts a greenhouse on top of a container housing an aquarium with fish. The water and the faeces of the fish feed the plants in the greenhouse, which in turn purify the water, which is returned to the aquarium. The result is a self-regulating city-farm the size of a parking space.

Before the festival even starts, you are invited to join the carrot city workshop, conceived by the Department of Architectural Science at Ryerson University in Toronto. It explores how design can enable the production of food in cities. If this sounds too hands-on, sit back for a guided tour in the urban farming bus, which rumbles along to several town gardens and urban farms. Maarten Roels of Ghent University will comment on the garden city trend. Back at Kaaitheater, Voorraad BRXL Réserve demonstrates the potential of urban farming in the capital: Several existing initiatives introduce and sell their products.

One of the more subtle, but profound, offerings of this edition is The Black Lamb, a project by documentary filmmaker and artist Els Dietvorst. Her work is sometimes compared to Joseph Beuys and his social democracy concept. Dietvorst recently moved from Brussels to a sheep farm in Duncormick, Ireland from where she watches her neighbours struggling to make ends meet. This sketch of the daily fight for survival, far away from the city, offers a wholly different perspective of the idyllic human condition in the countryside.

5-9 June

Burning Ice Festival

Kaaitheater, Sainctelettesquare 20, Brussels

www.kaaitheater.be