projects
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Museum of Human-Hunting
Simple as ABC #4, #6 & #8 | 2019 - 2025
an audio installation, unraveling present-day practices of humans hunting other humans within the context of the EU’s border policies
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Barzakh
2024
an opera about the Belgian prison system, with a libretto written together with artistic collaborators living in detention and music by Osama Abdulrasol
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The Voice of Fingers
Simple as ABC #7 | 2023
a theatre piece excavating the colonial history and unsettling present of fingerprinting as a technology for controlling human movement
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Le contre-musée des libertés individuelles
2022
an exhibition about individual liberties and what it means to be free to decide over one’s own body
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De bevrijding van het edelhert
2022
a contemporary beast fable for 9-year-old children about the criminalisation of solidarity with non-recognised co-citizens
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Mobility Management Machine
Simple as ABC #5 | 2021
a lecture-performance about 5 years of encounters with border guards, people smugglers and experts who have been subjected to the EU external border
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The Wild Hunt
Simple as ABC #3 | 2019
an audio performance, conjuring up a yet-to-be-built museum of human-hunting, curated by experts from around the Mediterranean
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Domo de Eūropa Historio en Ekzilo
2013-2018
the first international exhibition on life in the former European Union
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Keep Calm & Validate
Simple as ABC #2 | 2017
an interview-based musical about how the digitisation of border control is reshaping the way EU officials speak about unrecognised citizens
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Man vs Machine
Simple as ABC #1 | 2016
a theatrical essay about the so-called 'electronic nose' and other border detection technology
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Aperçu de l'inconnu
2016
a labyrinthine theatre play retracing the steps of the detectives leading the monumentally failed Brabant Killers investigation
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Memento Park
2015
a reenactment of the Flemish World War I centenary commemoration, exposing the links between nationalism, mass tourism and the war industry
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De onkreukelbare
2012
a theatrical collage, taking its inspiration from the controversial revolutionary figure Maximilien de Robespierre to examine how rebellions germinate, go off the rails and are commemorated
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Lethal Inc.
2011
a PowerPoint performance on the rationalisation of the scientific search for supposedly 'humane' execution methods
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Billy, Sally, Jerry and the .38 Gun
2010
a cabaretesque play, zooming in on a moment in US history when conservative politics, domestic terrorism and the LGTBQI+ rights movement unexpectedly collided
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Fobbit
2009
an interview-based monologue about Belgian soldiers stationed in Afghanistan
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Heroes and Villains
2009
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National Anthem
2009
publications
about Thomas
Thomas Bellinck (°1983, Recklinghausen), is a Brussels-based theatre and exhibition maker. He creates performances and installations based on audio recordings, with a strong focus on memory politics, state-sponsored violence and practices of detention. In 2009, after having studied linguistics and literature at the University of Leuven, Thomas graduated as a theatre director from the Brussels Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound. Since then, he has been a founding member of documentary theatre company Steigeisen, artistic production platform ROBIN and The School of Speculative Documentary.
In 2013, Thomas built ‘Domo de Eūropa Historio en Ekzilo’, a futuristic-historical museum about life in the former European Union. The immersive installation was selected for the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Wiener Festwochen, The Flemish Theatre Festival, Fast Forward Festival in Athens, Wiesbaden Biennale and Festival de Marseille. Since 2015, Thomas has been working on ‘Simple as ABC’, a growing series of performances and installations zooming in on the European Union’s border policies. The series includes a.o. an interview musical on border surveillance technology and an ever-evolving human-hunting museum, the next incarnation of which will open at Münchner Kammerspiele in 2025. In 2024, together with people detained at several Belgian prisons and composer Osama Abdulrasol, Thomas created the prison abolitionist opera ‘Barzakh’.
Thomas is also a doctoral researcher in the arts at Ghent University and KASK / School of Arts of the University College Ghent. As a lecturer, he has given classes and workshops at a.o. KASK in Ghent, La Cambre in Brussels, NYU Abu Dhabi and DAMU in Prague.