With RESPIRIA! Valentina Magaletti has created a sound work for Kanal’s opening weekend, inspired by the Brabançonne. The composition from 1830 becomes the starting point for a new and collective listening experience. Rather than reproducing the Belgian national anthem, the work deconstructs it and reimagines it through a queer lens.
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In the central square of Kanal, a pre-recorded composition plays through a spatial arrangement of four loudspeakers, weaving together contrabass flutes, breath sounds and percussive interventions. Over ten minutes, an immersive sonic landscape unfolds in which breath, rhythm and sound merge into a collective ritual.
Rooted in the ancient connection between breathing and rhythm, RESPIRIA! approaches sound-making as a shared and accessible act. The national anthem is no longer a closed composition but an open, collective experience.
This commission forms part of How to open, the first year of Protocols for opening the museum, a three-year inquiry into what it means for a new museum in Brussels to be truly open, welcoming and public.