OMIRI Genk: A living city portrait
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- 2 minuten om te lezen
At the heart of our work at LABIOMISTA this year lies a single guiding principle: Never Alone. Talent and knowledge do not grow in isolation. They expand through encounters, collaboration, and mutual recognition. This philosophy shapes our ongoing community projects, and it forms the exact starting point for OMIRI Genk.
Artist Koen Vanmechelen invited Portuguese multi-instrumentalist Vasco Ribeiro Casais to bring his unique project to Belgium for the very first time. OMIRI is the life work of Casais, who explores the musical language of places by remixing local traditions into contemporary compositions. By inviting him to Genk, Vanmechelen brings a celebrated Portuguese artistic vision into dialogue with a completely new community outside its home country.
Over the past year, Casais traveled across Genk with a camera and recording equipment. He visited markets, kitchens, academies, and the training grounds of KRC Genk to capture the everyday voices and sounds of more than 150 people. From pouring tea and growing mushrooms to miners choirs and local rappers, he gathered the rich sonic DNA of a city built by people from all corners of the world.
As Petra Remans, coordinator of the OpUnDi Genk learning ecosystem, notes: "Vasco is digging up the building blocks of the modern culture of a city that is just a hundred years young, where folk music emerged in the shadow of the mines and arrived in the suitcases of workers, skilled craftspeople, and families who came to Genk from all corners of the world to build a life here."
On Saturday, September 5, 2026, this collective portrait comes to life during a live performance in the Nieuwe Kempen neighborhood in Genk Noord. For sixty minutes, the city will see and hear itself reflected on stage. Vasco Ribeiro Casais transforms all those recorded sounds of Genk into the foundational beat of his signature electrofolk style, playing multiple instruments live on stage. He builds on those rhythms and interacts dynamically with professional and amateur musicians, choirs, young people, and local residents, including Nektaridoo, the duo De Twins, Lara Koyuncu, and various choirs, who all perform together to shape a vibrant shared experience.
OMIRI Genk is a collaboration with C mine and a key project within OpUnDi Genk, a learning ecosystem growing in and around LABIOMISTA, supported by the European Union.
PRACTICAL
Saturday, September 5, 2026
Nieuwe Kempen 6, Genk (in case of rain: C-mine)
Start: 8:30 PM
Free, but places are limited and registration is mandatory.
