OUr cultural programme, everyone can take part in it
The Guiltless Wednesdays
A bar - A few books - And regular meetings
@sabbar.be and @unitybookshop.brussels are launching a literary open mic: a way to move around with words and learn together. Feeling like a new activity to you?
Come as audience or as performer. You can be both, of course, and deciding to perform on the spot is part of the freedom.
We have chosen a theme for each evening to guide us through autumn and winter. Bring your text, song, joke or theatre moment, grab the mic, and let’s share a moment together.
A bar is opened from 6 till 9:30pm and all ideas more than welcome.
Send us a message for any idea or incentives.
Looking forward to meeting you all!
10 Years Too Long: Reading & Solidarity for Selahattin Demirtaş
Join us as we reflect on his decade of detention, read selections from his short story collections written behind bars, and collectively write letters of solidarity to send to prison.
Let’s stand together for dignity, freedom and justice for all.
Former co-leader of the pro-Kurdish HDP party, human rights lawyer, and author, Selahattin Demirtaş has been unlawfully imprisoned in Turkey since November 2016.
Despite landmark rulings by the European Court of Human Rights demanding his immediate release, he remains behind bars on politically motivated charges.
An evening of stories, awareness, and action
Unity Bookshop & R.A.Z Sanctuary
Friday 06/11, 6.30 PM - 9PM
@ SABBAR Rue de Russie 10, Saint-Gilles
Entrance: 5 / 8 / 10 (let us know if you have any financial difficulties so we can help you on our side)
Feeling Watched? Pt 3. Sequences of surveillance
In part three of FEELING WATCHED? will focus on sequences, algorithms and patterns.
First, we will have a free discussion. From facial recognition to surveillance of personal data, we will dig into these technologies and the ways they're used to profile, categorise and control.
Then we will draw and redraw, exploring how the unsteady connection from eye to hands fails to reproduce perfect copies and categories. We will explore how best to represent these more intangible forms of surveillance, asking whether drawing can uncover that which can't be revealed by data.
Nota Bene: You are more than welcome to attend this session of “Feeling watched?” even if you did not experienced the first two sessions, those are linked but not consecutive.
The findings from FEELING WATCHED? Will be collected into a series of zines.
For more information contact Millie: @green_by_nature_
"Drawing and erasing borders" Zine-making workshop
"Drawing and erasing borders"
Zine-making workshop
To commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, our creative workshop will focus on borders and walls.
Borders are, of course, political. National, regional, and even city borders were all created by people with specific intentions in specific circumstances. They've endured and evolved, they are constantly remade, contested, crossed, weakened or fortified.
Borders and walls (seek to) define who is in and who is out , who is Us and who is Them.
As such they also define us - whether we were born within or outside, whether we left or stayed, had to flee or escape, were invited in or made to feel unwanted.
Borders can also be intimate and personal; they are the boundaries we draw or try to; the limits that save us, the barriers that others at times fail to respect.
What are the borders that have made us and what are the borders we are building? What borders should we aim to dismantle, and how do we do that in the current times?
In this zine-making workshop involving a short (optional) writing session, we will reflect on these questions, and learn how to make small zines* that can be an outlet for our toughts and creative expression.
You will learn about zines, their history and the values they carry, and will be guided through making your own zine!
All material will be provided.
Open to beginners and people who think they are not creative 😀
👉 Feel free to bring any piece(s) of writing (a poem, prose, a news article, a quote, a song) that you've written or that someone else has written on the topic of walls / borders / boundaries.
*zines: homemade little magazines that often include collages and writing, and can be easily photocopied and distributed.
Practical information:
Pick your payment option based on your disposable income:
- low income: 15€
- medium income: 18€
- comfortable income: 20€
Please note: you are asked to pay a deposit to reserve your spot online, and will pay the remaining 5€ cash on the day (bank transfer also possible).
Rest and reconnection - Restorative Yoga - Sunday Gatherings - PART 1
Re.turning Home Sessions is a series of three Sunday two-part restorative yoga practices about returning home to ourselves and each other.
- Part one (+/- 20 minutes): Opening circle and related activity (depending on the week this will be a relational connection activity (such as a short game / collective movement) or journaling / creative activity.
- Part two (+/- 70 minutes): Restorative yoga practice and closing circle (depending on the week this will either be sharing or journaling/drawing).
Why? Much of life runs on inertia: we follow paths we did not always choose, and lose track of who we are along the way. Returning home is a way to symbolise us coming back to ourselves, allowing ourselves to rest in order to wake up to the truth of who we are and to slowly start perceiving life (again) to be more than an instrument and therefore something that cannot be optimized. As such, rest is a form of resistance…
« A simple refusal motivates my argument: refusal to believe that the present time and place, and the people who are here with us, are somehow not enough. » (Jenny Odell)
How? Slow, supported rest is a way to notice this and come home / return. Restorative yoga creates conditions in which the body and nervous system are invited to release effort entirely. Not top down, but bottom up: the practice unfolds through allowing rather than directing. In doing so, it activates the parasympathetic nervous system that allows rest and restore.
« I wish you rest today. I wish you a deep knowing that exhaustion is not a normal way of living. You are enough. You can rest. You must resist anything that doesn’t center your divinity as a human being. You are worthy of care. » (Tricia Hersey)
Side notes:
1. I understand yoga as a collective healing practice that sees the interconnectedness between (the healing of) all living beings and the earth. We practice with respect for the roots and origins of yoga.
2. The sessions draws on Tricia Hersey (Rest Is Resistance), Jenny Odell (How to Do Nothing), Gall Parker (Restorative Yoga for ethnic and race-based stress and trauma) and Stephanie Foo (What my bones know) and treats rest as a way of resisting a culture that measures our worth by productivity and strongly values the connection between the mind and the body.
More than a mask
In a crowded city, we often wear masks to blend in. This month explores the tension between our public personas and our true creative identity. Day after day, we shift our shape for our colleagues, friends, family, and strangers on the street. But where does true authenticity stand among all those different identities?
Join us on Friday 30th October for a very special edition of the Brussels Creativity Lab, co-hosted with wellbeing coach and yoga teacher Carmen Pontelli.
On the inside, we are so much more than what we think—and far more than what others think we are. In this creative workshop, we’ll explore our inner voice, look at how we balance our many roles, and ask: What parts of myself do I truly wish to express?
To bring this to life through expressive arts, we will be inviting participants to create paper masks.
Get ready to experiment, play, meet others and have fun.
All materials will be provided.
About our co-host:
Carmen Pontelli is a holistic wellbeing coach, yoga teacher and founder of CarmaWay. Her work invites people to slow down, listen to the body and explore what lies beneath the roles, expectations and stories that can shape the way we move through life.
::::Agenda::::
- 18:00 Arrival & Welcome
- 18:30 Start of session
- 20:00 Closing followed with networking
::: Location:::
Sabbar/UNITY Bookshop, Rue de Russie 10, 1060 Saint-Gilles
-
Brussels Creativity Lab is a creative community for anyone curious about their own creativity — whether you want to explore it, question it, or simply make more room for it in your life. Join our email list: brusselscreativitylab.substack.com
Location
Sabbar
Rue de Russie 10, 1060 Saint-Gilles, Belgium
Leaven
Join author Timothy Ryan Day for an evening exploring Leaven, his novel of fermentation, grief, AI, and the strange processes through which inert matter is brought to life. He will talk about the ideas and experiences that shaped the novel, including academic research on early modern fermentation, and his work with food and beer in industrial kitchens in Spain.
The discussion will be followed by a reading of select passages that reflect on the connections between narrative, biological life, mythology, and emerging technologies. The evening will conclude with and open Q&A and conversation with the audience.
Bio: Timothy Ryan Day is a scholar of early modern literature and a professor of creative writing at Saint Louis University's Madrid Campus. His books include the novels Big Sky, Outside Athens, and Leaven, and the academic monograph Shakespeare and the Evolution of the Human Umwelt. His work has appeared in academic and popular outlets on both sides of the Atlantic. Day was born in Oklahoma, grew up in Chicago, and lives in Spain. He has taught at Universities in the US, China, Spain, and France. He recently completed four months as a visiting scholar at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich where he studied fermentation at the border of alchemy and science.
Collective anti-fascist reading - "Cobalt red - How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives, by Siddharth Kara (St. Martin’s Press)”
Join us at Unity Bookshop for a our fourth collective reading session to tackle the multiple forms of contemporary fascism — this time we chose the neo-colonialism/extractivist implementations as a form of fascism with “Cobalt Red - How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives” by Siddharth Kara — and deepen our knowledge, activate our critical thinking, and debate together.
Come and get a piece of the book: read amongst your peers for 45 minutes, then discuss and analyse the text as a group for another 45 minutes, bringing our collective knowledge together at the end.
Free event, donations welcome. "Donations are always welcome — every bit helps us keep these events accessible.
Cobalt Red:
A powerful examination of mining operations in the Southeastern Congo that reveals a global system of modern-day slavery, and the inhumane, often deadly working conditions for the men, women and children who extract the rare metal required for smartphones, computers and electric vehicles.
Nominated Work
Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives
By
Siddharth Kara
The revelatory New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller, shortlisted for the Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year Award.
An unflinching investigation reveals the human rights abuses behind the Congo’s cobalt mining operation—and the moral implications that affect us all.
Cobalt Red is the searing, first-ever exposé of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by cobalt mining, as told through the testimonies of the Congolese people themselves. Activist and researcher Siddharth Kara has traveled deep into cobalt territory to document the testimonies of the people living, working, and dying for cobalt. To uncover the truth about brutal mining practices, Kara investigated militia-controlled mining areas, traced the supply chain of child-mined cobalt from toxic pit to consumer-facing tech giants, and gathered shocking testimonies of people who endure immense suffering and even die mining cobalt.
Cobalt is an essential component to every lithium-ion rechargeable battery made today, the batteries that power our smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles. Roughly 75 percent of the world’s supply of cobalt is mined in the Congo, often by peasants and children in sub-human conditions. Billions of people in the world cannot conduct their daily lives without participating in a human rights and environmental catastrophe in the Congo. In this stark and crucial book, Kara argues that we must all care about what is happening in the Congo—because we are all implicated.
Biography
Siddharth Kara is an author, researcher, and activist on modern slavery. He is a British Academy Global Professor and an associate professor of human trafficking and modern slavery at Nottingham University. Kara has authored three books on modern slavery and won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize. Kara's first book was adapted into a Hollywood film, Trafficked. A feature film inspired by Cobalt Red is currently in preproduction. He divides his time between the U.K. and the US.
Drawing poetry in the garden
This is the second event of a 2-part series that takes you from reading and listening to poetry, to illustrating and drawing based on the poems that have resonated with you
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27 September - 16:00 to 18:00
Entrance: 10€ (but let us know if cost is a barrier - we can find a way!)
All materials provided.
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You can attend Part 1 , or Part 2, or both :)
Part 2: Drawing Poetry in the Garden
On Sunday 27 September, we will let the echo of the voices and emotions heard at the open mic on 17 September (see Part 1) inspire us to draw, sketch, scribble or paint.
In short, we will be drawing poetry!
Mathilde from Que Ca Studiowill guide you through watercolours techniques, while Caroline from SCRAPS will show you how to turn single words and sentences into fully illustrated pages.
The end-result will be collected in a special edition zine, combining our poems and illustrations! ❤️
Although we recommend attending the open mic on 17 September to already be immersed in poetry, don't worry if you can only come on the 27 September, as there will be printed copies of poems for you to draw inspiration from.
Whether you want to listen to modern poetry, share your own writing or explore your illustration skills, come and join us !!
Equinox autumn festival
After a powerful session in Unity's garden celebrating an Irish Summer Solstice thanks to the collective "Cúpla focal", we team up again for the Autumn Equinox!
Want to celebrate a new milestone of the season with us?
Join us in the garden again (maybe a bit more equipped with extra layers) for a broader cultural momentum.
This time we embark on the transnational Celtic culture: this is also a call to all poets, storytellers, musicians (this is your show time) to reveal your talent to others during this evening.
On the 26th, we will spend some time together navigating various Celtic backgrounds, in order to set up a bigger scale of the Equinox Celtic celebrations over the autumn, here in Brussels.
The meeting is free, donations are welcome, and we will announce more on the night.
Find, Make, Read
A creative and inclusive workshop where you can take some time for yourself, experiment and create with your hands. Using collage and a variety of materials, everyone will be able to design their own bookmark, giving free rein to their imagination and creativity. No prior artistic experience is required.
Bio
Marine is a visual artist and workshop facilitator. Self-taught and multidisciplinary, she works mainly with painting, collage and the reuse of materials.
With her workshops, she aims to create accessible and open spaces where artistic practice becomes a means of exploring, sharing and building connections.
Slow Read - ‘From what is, to what if’ by Rob Hopkins.
Join us on 26 September to read ‘From what is, to what if’ by Rob Hopkins.
We do have the capability to effect dramatic change, Hopkins argues, but we’re failing because we’ve largely allowed our most critical tool to languish: human imagination. As defined by social reformer John Dewey, imagination is the ability to look at things as if they could be otherwise.
The ability, that is, to ask What if? And if there was ever a time when we needed that ability, it is now.
SlowRead is not your usual book club invitation.
It's a no-prep, no-deadline zone of arpentage where we explore the book individually in parts (on the spot) and then bring everything together in conversation as a group.
Studio Watercolour - Redesign a book cover
What's better, for a watercolour workshop, than illustrating your favourite book? Good news: that's exactly the plan for that day.
Bring your favourite book, share your passion for the story it tells, and illustrate it. I teach you how to do a real graphic research, from the idea to the illustration.
The hardest part in watercolour is the patience between layers. We'll see together how this patience actually helps you give perspective to your paintings.
We'll also share our stories, each one theirs, and what we love in literature.
In short, we're going to enjoy ourselves, without overthinking and without pressure of result. You'll leave with a bellyband made to measure for your favourite book: remember to bring your physical book, it's essential to adjust it to the right size and to be able to display it at home, like in a bookshop.
Bring nothing else than your book, and your favourite brushes if you have some.
Practical info: €20 · Friday 25 September · 6:30pm to 8:30pm · all levels welcome, in English · Unity Bookshop – Ixelles.
FOOD & DEMOCRACY Who gets to decide what we eat, and what does that have to do with who we're able to become?
2-hour guided investigation into food, the body and democracy + drink (20€ - tickets below)
Short provocations · extracts · collective experiment · drink
We tend to think of democracy as something that happens in parliaments, elections and protests. But political power also operates much closer to the body.
What's available to eat, what's affordable, what's advertised to us, what children learn to want.. None of that is neutral, and much of it is not decided by the people eating.
This evening starts there, and then goes one step further: if the systems shaping what we eat also shape our attention, our mood, our capacity to concentrate and think, what does that mean for our capacity to participate in collective life at all?
Drawing on biology, food systems and ideas from Ultra-Processed People, Ultra-Processed Women and How Emotions Are Made, we'll explore the relationship between food environments, the brain and the body, and the conditions underlying human agency.
The evening will combine short provocations, brief extracts, collective discussion and a practical exercise inviting participants to look differently at the food environment around them, and to identify where they have, and can reclaim, agency.
The aim isn't to tell you what to eat. It is to leave you with a different understanding of your own agency, and of the systems that shape it.
If our bodies are part of the infrastructure of democracy, then taking back some power over our bodies can also be a way of taking back political power.
Hosted by Linda Salamé, founder of Body Security (https://bodysecurity.io)
Food engineer, political scientist and storyteller. Former policy officer at the European Commission.
Discovering Honey Bees, Wild Bees & alternative Beekeeping
Interactive Bee Workshop
A playful, participatory workshop inviting people to discover bees, their social or solitary lives, and the small actions we can take to support them.
Discover the fascinating world of bees by taking part in this participatory and playful workshop!
You will :
uncover the immense diversity of bees and the organization of honeybees
discover a more natural approach to beekeeping by exploring the work of Paolo Fontana (copies available on site for 25
taste different honeys and get to know more about it
learn how we can take care of the bees that live all around us
So, ready to buzz together?
Workshop free, on donation.
Duration : 2h
Poetry in the Garden at Unity Bookshop
This is the first event of a 2-part series that takes you from reading and listening to poetry, to illustrating and drawing based on the poems that have resonated with you.
You can attend Part 1, or Part 2 or both for a fully poetic transition into the Autum!
Part 1: Poetry in the Garden
On Thursday 17 September, Miksi lauches her poetry collection on grief at Unity, followed by an open mic.
Bring your own poems or prose on the theme of 'flight' if you'd like to perform at the open mic!
Beginners and new voices welcome :)
If you want to bring a printed copy of your text that we can use for inspiration during Part 2, that would be lovely (but not obligatory).
You can also simply come to open your ears and your heart, and start noticing what poems or sentences you may want to draw inspiration from and illustrate during Part 2 , Drawing Poetry in the Garden , on Sunday 27th September.
Wanna talk?
Join our intimate talking circle at @unitybookshop.brussels!
On 13.09 at 4pm, we’re hosting a heartfelt and inclusive conversation circle for women and those who identify as women. This is a safe, non-mixed space where you can share, listen, and connect with others in a judgment-free environment.
What to expect?
A moment of authentic exchange, guided by Perrine, where we’ll explore themes of self-reflection, empowerment and sisterhood.
Let’s create a space where we can be ourselves, inspire each other and grow together.
This event is limited to 8 participants. Please be mindful of others if you are not sure or if you cannot attend anymore.
Yoga, Scones & Sutras - Last extra additional session
Come and join us for the very last time in the courtyard for a gentle yoga session, followed by breakfast and a guided reading of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.
Together we'll move, breathe, eat, read, and discuss. Through selected passages of this ancient text, we'll explore questions that are still relevant today: how do we pay attention, live with intention, and relate to ourselves and others?
No previous experience with yoga or philosophy is needed, just bring your curiosity.
The session lasts 90 minutes and includes yoga, freshly baked scones & warm drinks, and the reading/discussion.
Ticket 22€, 6 places available, bring your own mat (or book it if you don't have one).
As a Pilates and Hatha Yoga teacher, I enjoy helping people reconnect with their bodies through mindful movement. Inspired by the teachings of both disciplines, I explore ways to integrate them into daily life, both on and off the mat. My approach is accessible, attentive, and adaptable to every body. Virginia FB:Yopibxl
Feeling Watched? A Surveillance/Art Guided Walk and Workshop (Event at capacity)
Surveillance and the City - the second part of the “Surveillance” program organised by local artist Millie Green
How does surveillance manifest in Brussels? Together, we will take a guided walk through Ixelles to observe how the different technologies and techniques of surveillance are enmeshed in the city.
Then, we'll return to the bookshop for discussion, reflective collage and writing, to reflect on what we've discovered during the day, and how that impacts our relationships to the city
After the workshop, Millie will gather our reflections into a collective zine (and distribute this to you!) to make a record of your discussions.
Entry free, but bring a magazine for collage!
Exploring how surveillance impacts city life
Please consider others - if you decide to register to this event, you have to let us know in advance if you cannot attend the event anymore, a no show really affects our organization and the person leading the event.
This event is limited to 15 spots.
Bookish Queers For Good
Bookish Queers
An evening of community-led discussions on queerness where attendees bring topics they really want to talk about. Topics can range from the books we read about historic queer villains to finding representation in the animal kingdom, so expect to talk about anything and everything queer.
Concept is based on Living Room Lectures (@livingroomlectures) It is not mandatory to bring a topic but it is more fun when you do.
Register below.
PS: Can't make it this time but but would like to be notified next time they organise an event?
Sign up to their mailing list.
Reading out loud - "Discourse on Colonialism" Essay by Aimé Césaire
This is an invitation to READERS AND NON-READERS!
After our glorious meeting around the work of defining Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco, and followin Chimamanda Adichie’s manifesto “We should all be feminists”, we decided to move on with our reading out loud with another important text by a pillar author, Aimé Césaire and his “Discourse on Colonialism” to reframe what colonialism means and how its rhetoric echoes nowadays.
Within 45 minute to an hour read, we will be able to go through this entire speech and have a conversation or a debate about it.
The reading is volunteer-based; if you don't feel comfortable, you can just listen and get energized by the meeting of other fellows in Unity Bookshop's garden!
FREE EVENT - DONATIONS WELCOME
The reading will start at 6:30pm, and we'll read the whole essay before having a collective chat about the book.
Joining?
A lunch break with David Van Reybrouck
This September comes with a visit from one of Belgium's foremost thinkers, and we can't wait for this moment (we hope you do too!)
After having read some of his books, which we loved, we reached out to seize the opportunity to talk directly with David Van Reybrouck, and not just us. Unity's project is aiming for broader engagement, and by that, we mean we are also waiting for your questions. David Van Reybrouck and his assistant responded kindly and positively to our request for a democratic session open to all.
Highlighting three of his books — Congo, Against Elections, and his latest, Revolusi — we want to dig into some crucial subjects. Under the umbrella of self-governance, climate collapse, and the never-ending legacy of colonialism, we are offering you the chance to send us your questions ahead of time, and/or ask them live on the spot. That way, we can all take part in the conversation.
This is a hybrid journey between a citizens' assembly and a Q&A over a lunch break.
Your ticket includes a lunch snack, tea/coffee, and 10% off the titles mentioned above. It also helps Unity Bookshop continue its work bringing people together through community learning — so thank you for your participation. Once you register, you will receive an email asking for your question (not mandatory, but feel free to express yourself). If you have any doubt or requirements, please send an email to aurore@unitybookshop.be
If the price is a barrier, send us a message so we can help you out!
Revolusi, Van Reybrouck's book on the independence of Indonesia, was both nominated for the Cundill History Prize and the Baillie Gifford Non-Fiction Award.
His essay Against Elections: The Case for Democracy was translated into over twenty languages and drew praise from former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. His plays Mission and Para have toured internationally, and his poetry has culminated into Rain Requiem, a tribute to climate victims.
Van Reybrouck is a pioneering advocate of deliberative democracy. He founded the G1000 Citizens' Summit, and his work had led to trials in participatory democracy throughout Belgium, The Netherlands, and France.
In 2021 he was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities of Bard College, New York. In 2024, he was Arne Naess Professor at the University of Oslo, named after Norway's most famous philosopher.
Studio Watercolour - A session inspired by Helen Frankenthaler
Come and discover the magic of watercolour in a bookshop surrounded by silence, books, and a calm atmosphere. No experience needed for this session, just curiosity and trust in the process.
During these two hours, you'll explore colour mixing, water control, and basic techniques to paint your own landscapes or abstract compositions. Everything is provided: paint, paper, brushes, and inspiration. You just show up.
During the workshop, our local Belgian artist, Mathilde, will tell you more about a watercolour technique invented by a “avant-garde” woman, Helen Frankenthaler, in 1952. Her work was as mocked as it was praised at the time, and yet it gave rise to an entire movement in American painting.
It is an opportunity for Mathilde to pass on her story, and teach her technique.
(“And we'll wander through books looking for inspiration, or maybe a constraint... I won't say more.” Mathilde)
Taught by Mathilde BQT, graphic design graduate and visual artist.
€20 · No material needed · Beginners welcome
Worlds within Worlds: launch event
Losses are a part of everyday life. These artists navigate this terrain of grief, a transitory space that treads between one state of being and another. One discovers a story of hope, the other finds homecoming within themself. Their works invite the audience to wander into the memories, dreamscapes and experiences that bring forth a journey of becoming and belonging.
Watcharita Aroon lives and works in Brussels. She is the founder of Wolkendag Archive, a repository of paraphernalia from graphic artworks, printed matter to souvenirs.
Shuxian Lee is a storyteller displaced from tropical shores. She has a fondness for graphic novels and has illustrated for Asymptote Journal, an online literary journal, and short graphic stories Putu Piring and Through the Longkang, published by Checkpoint Theatre Singapore. Her comics can also be found in Liquid City Vol. 3 and C'est Bon comic anthology.
Www.instagram.com/whenshudraws
Free event - Donations welcome on site
Bookrats launch party
We're excited to launch @bookrats_brussels, a new English-language book club in Brussels.
Inspired by the French rat de bibliothèque, we're building a community around books, conversation and shared curiosity. We also just think rats are really cool. 🐀
Join us for our launch party at Unity Bookshop to find out what Bookrats is all about, meet fellow readers and celebrate the start of our literary community.
This isn't a book club meeting just yet, it's a chance to get to know us, meet other bookish people, and find out how to join.
🐀 Drinks
🐀 Finger food
🐀 Surprise goodies
🐀 Help choose our first read
Lino printing workshop - Atelier Suriz
Join us on August 30th at Unity Bookshop for an introduction to lino printing. This marvelous technique offers so many possibilities, and Alicia from Atelier Suriz will guide you through creation of your very own lino block print from initial design to finished work.
Alicia is an illustrator working right here in the Porte de Namur neighborhood. She has many years’ experience in printmaking, most recently in illustration projects. Paper and basic printing supplies will be provided at the workshop, and at the end of the session you will have a lovely print and lino block to take home.
And in case you want to check out Alicia’s website:
The sociology of freedom - Abdullah Öcalan (collective reading and discussion with Adm - academy of democratic modernity)
Abdullah Öcalan was abducted on February 15, 1999, as part of an international plot. He is considered the leading strategist and the most prominent political figure of the Kurdish freedom movement. While in solitary confinement at Imrali Island Prison, he wrote more than ten books that transformed Kurdish politics and beyond. He speaks for the people's aspirations for freedom from political and cultural oppression, as well as for democracy and peace. His ideas have inspired people from Kurdistan to other parts and struggles of the world. From his prison cell, he started and is leading the peace process and the search for a democratic solution last year.
The Sociology of Freedom is the third volume in a series of five works titled The Manifesto of Democratic Civilization. In it, he revisits the origins of human culture to offer perspectives on twenty-first-century issues and explore potential solutions. He argues that industrialism, capitalism, and the nation-state cannot be overcome within the confines of a socialist context.
At this event, we will read parts of Öcalan's sociological and political analyses to establish a theoretical foundation for understanding the problem of the state and the solution for society. We will read different sections in smaller groups and then discuss them as a whole. Our main goal is to generate interest and excitement about discussing and sharing thoughts on the paradigm. This could lead to forming a reading group to continue reading together or planning a second event focusing on the concrete proposal of building democratic confederalism.
Entry is free.
Citizens' assembly #3
Reclaim the narrative. Speak for yourself. Connect with your community.
You didn’t attend the first ones? no problem! It can be a different crowd each time!
On Wednesday 26th of August at 6:30pm, Unity Bookshop opens its doors for an evening of drinks and real conversation - the kind that doesn't come with a moderator, a hierarchy, or a script.
We will talk about the things that bind us as people. We can make space for agreement and for dissensus, for debate, in order to stimulate our intellectual reflection, listen to one another, let space for the understanding.
Facing dumb polarisation, manufactured outrage, and the slow creep of politics built on division and fear, let's do something different. Let's think locally, speak honestly, and build something together.
You can suggest a topic, or add a question via the form below - or just show up and join the conversation.
Friendship Bracelet Making - Bring your political message on board
What if we could be little Swifties but with a political message?
At Unity, we offer a time on a Sunday to meet people with a tea, a coffee, a lemonade and some time talk or brainstorm around your punch line bracelet.
Grab a drink, your pals and the beads and create your own revolutionary message.
This event is an attempt to connect with people, and even more to organise a little fundraising for an NGO we are close to, SOS Mediterranee to help rescuing people crossing the Mediterranean sea in awful conditions, knowing that our governments are actively complicit of thousands of invisible deaths yearly.
If you wish to give more, we create a differentiated price for all audiences.
See you there!
Studio Watercolour
Come and discover the magic of watercolour in a bookshop surrounded by silence, books, and a calm atmosphere. No experience needed for this session, just curiosity and trust in the process.
During these two hours, you'll explore colour mixing, water control, and basic techniques to paint your own landscapes or abstract compositions. Everything is provided: paint, paper, brushes, and inspiration. You just show up.
Taught by Mathilde BQT, graphic design graduate and visual artist.
€20 · No material needed · Beginners welcome
Collective anti-fascist reading - "ANTIFA - the antifascist handbook” by Mark Bray
Join us at Unity Bookshop for a our third collective reading session to tackle the multiple forms of contemporary fascism — this time we chose the history of fascism with “Antifa - the antifascist handbook” by Mark Bray — and deepen our knowledge, activate our critical thinking, and debate together.
Come and get a piece of the book: read amongst your peers for 45 minutes, then discuss and analyse the text as a group for another 45 minutes, bringing our collective knowledge together at the end.
Free event, donations welcome.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook is a 2017 book written by American historian Mark Bray and published by Melville House Publishing, which explores the history of anti-fascist movements since the 1920s and 1930s and their contemporary resurgence.
Content
Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook details the emergence of anti-fascism in the 1920s and 1930s, and offers an analysis of contemporary anti-fascist movements, particularly antifa in the United States and Europe. Bray argues in his book that militant anti-fascism is a reasonable and legitimate political tradition, and describes his book as "an unabashedly partisan call to arms that aims to equip a new generation of anti-fascists with the history and theory necessary to defeat the resurgent far-right". Historical examples referred to in the book include the 43 Group, Rock Against Racism, the Red Warriors, and the Autonomen who popularized black bloc tactics.[1][2][3] It also details key events in the history of anti-fascist movements, such as the Battle of Cable Street.[4]
In addition to describing the history of anti-fascist movements, the book dedicates a chapter to "Five Historical Lessons for Anti-Fascists".[5][1] It discusses the subject of antifa as it relates to deplatforming and freedom of speech.[6][7][1] Interviews that Bray conducted with antifa activists are included in the book.[8][9][10] Bray conducted 61 such interviews across 17 different countries.[5][4] Bray uses the definition of fascism provided by Robert Paxton.[3][11] He defines antifa as "illiberal politics of social revolutionism applied to fighting the Far Right, not only literal fascists" and as a "pan-left radical politics uniting communists, socialists, anarchists and various different radical leftists together for the shared purpose of combating the far right."[11][12][13]
Reception
The San Francisco Chronicle praised the book's writing, calling Bray's analysis "methodical and informative" and his arguments "incisive and cohesive".[5][14]
Carlos Lozada of The Washington Post commented that "the book's most enlightening contribution is on the history of anti-fascist efforts over the past century, but its most relevant for today is its justification for stifling speech and clobbering white supremacists".[3]
In the Los Angeles Review of Books, Luca Provenzano said that the book was "written from a commendable place of engagement and provides a serviceable genealogy for militant anti-fascism in the present", but was also critical of the book, saying that a "closer, more critical look at modern antifa's inception in the 1960s and '70s reveals some of the pitfalls of militant organizing, and a truly credible analysis of anti-fascist protest tactics would need to pay much closer attention to this period."[15]
Fred Shaw, writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, called the book "pointed with concise analysis provided by an insider’s perspective", but also said it was "not a page-turner".[11]
In Brazil, Bray's book featured in what Bray described as "a little bit of a controversy" on Twitter in 2021, when a member of the self-described "Anti-Fascism Police Movement" tweeted a photo of himself holding the book, to which the author replied that if he was really anti-fascist he should quit his job.[10]
(EVENT AT CAPACITY ) Feeling watched? A surveillance/art workshop
Join us for a series of workshops in surveillance/art, culminating in a group zine, organized by illustrator Millie Green
Here is a description of her first event at Unity Bookshop, happening on the Saturday 16th of August!
1. Feeling watched?
Exploring the ways we watch ourselves and our loved ones: self/intimate surveillance
Group discussion
how do you think you watch yourself/those close to you?
why do you do it? why do you think those around you might be watching you?
Workshop
Group drawing exercise: we draw one another, one at a time
Talk about how it felt to be drawn and how it felt to draw
(Capacity reached) Zine making as feminist practice. session #3 make your own zine with Caroline
Join us for a late afternoon of feminist creativity with Caroline as a facilitator between you and your future zine.
This last session is the end of a three -workshop series dedicated to feminism and zine-making. YOU CAN STILL JOIN EVEN IF YOU MISSED ONE OR TWO SESSIONS.
All those will be compiled in a collective zine available at Unity Bookshop.
FEMINIST ZINE MAKING WORKSHOP SERIES:
Caroline's first Feminist zine making workshop focused on exploring how women's bodies have been and remain a battlefield, while the second one was centered on both the teachings of feminism that we want to pass onto others, and the ways feminists have sought to reshape teaching and education. This third and last session is dedicated to "Love is as love does" inspired by bell hooks’ writings on the politics and practice of love, and the importance of friendship and community.
No skills required, all material provided, as well as tea and coffee :)
These events are free, but we welcome a 3 euro donation (cash or transfer) to Unity Bookshop.
reading out loud collectively - "we should all be feminists" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
This is an invitation to READERS AND NON-READERS!
After our glorious meeting around the work of defining Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco, we decided to move on with our reading out loud with another important text by an important author, to reframe what feminism means (cause yes, we need a convergence of fights - but for that, we can all agree it is better to define the terms and why we lead the fights).
Within a 45 minute read, we will be able to go through this entire manifesto and have a conversation or a debate about it.
The reading is volunteer-based; if you don't feel comfortable, you can just listen and get energized by the meeting of other fellows in Unity Bookshop's garden!
FREE EVENT - DONATIONS WELCOME
The reading will start at 6:30pm, and we'll read the whole 53 pages before having a collective chat about the book.
Joining?
Evening chats with a psychotherapist: Understanding how philosophers think from a psychological perspective
Join us for another evening dedicated to philosophers and minds with Teodora Muresan!
We're excited to welcome you to the third edition of Evening Chats with a Psychotherapist—a space dedicated to curiosity, reflection, and meaningful conversations. This edition explores how philosophers think from a psychological perspective, not only through lectures, but through guided conversations, practical exercises, and shared reflection. Have you ever questioned - who you are beneath your thoughts and beliefs? - you think, feel, or react the way you do? - what philosophy can teach us about the human mind? Whether you're passionate about psychology, philosophy, or simply interested in understanding yourself and others more deeply, this evening is for you