Le Senghor - Centre Culturel d Etterbeek

In 1937, the "Rixy" cinema closed its doors for good. At the same time, the building that housed it was abandoned and waited tirelessly for the pickaxes of some demolisher to arrive. This beautiful building from the beginning of the century (today, the large hall is called "Salle 1900") housed a village hall in the purest style of the time, with stucco, stained glass windows and wrought iron volutes, as well as a café-restaurant on the ground floor. In the 1980s, the municipality bought the building, which was in a sorry state, with the firm intention of bringing it back to life and, at the same time, returning the town to its inhabitants. In 1988, culture found a place from which it had almost disappeared forever. The Espace Senghor was born, and thus reopened the doors of this beautiful place that was once a neighbourhood cinema.

In 1988, Léopold Sedar Senghor personally inaugurated the new centre that would bear his name. A great poet and statesman, the first president of Senegal whose name evokes ideas of democracy, respect for all and artistic talent, Senghor could only encourage us to develop a plural culture. "I dreamed of a world of sunshine in the brotherhood of my blue-eyed brothers. This excerpt from a poem by Senghor - The Return of the Child Prodigy - now runs across the walls of the Centre in the form of graffiti. At the inauguration, the non-profit organisation "Tout" integrated "Un rêve mi-blanc, mi-noir" into the space, a work which, through a play of mirrors and black wood, reflects your smile under these lines:

I have to hide in the innermost part of my veins

The ancestor with the skin of storm, furrowed with lightning and thunder

My guardian animal, I must hide

That I break the dam of scandals.

He is my faithful blood that requires fidelity

Protecting my naked pride against

Myself and the superbness of the happy races...