The Walking Home Project – A Eight-Month
Artistic Journey Through Brussels
Project Proposal by Jyoti Vennix
Introduction
In Brussels, countless communities coexist, each with its own rhythm, language, and heartbeat.
Hidden within these layers lies a city of quiet gestures, shared spaces, and unspoken
connections. The Walking Home project unfolds within this living mosaic as a nine-month artistic
journey across the neighbourhoods and people that make up the city.
The project is an invitation to slow down, to meet, to listen, and to rediscover what “home”
means when we can see others. Through daily walks, spontaneous encounters, and acts of
creation, I will weave together the textures of Brussels — its people, its materials, and its
overlooked corners.
The city itself will become my studio, my stage, and my companion. The Walking Home project
is not a performance to observe but a process to join, a poetic, inclusive, and participatory
artwork celebrating connection, belonging, and the art of being present.
Concept and Intention
Walking stands at the core of this project, an artistic method of observing, transforming, and
connecting. It is a way of engaging with the city as a living organism and uncovering stories
embedded in everyday movement and shared space.
In my previous walking project, I walked for 777 days,12600km, through 11 countries, sewing
and crocheting with materials found along the way. I collected fragments, pieces of different
materials, and discarded objects, and transformed them into small objects that embodied care
and attention. Each step became a mark of presence; each object, a quiet conversation with
what had been forgotten.
In Brussels, this process continues. The Walking Home project treats walking as both material
and metaphor, an act of slowing down in a fast world, of reclaiming attention, and of making art
through encounter. Each step becomes a gesture of curiosity, each found object a trace of the
city’s collective life.
Over nine months, the walk will evolve as a process of creation and dialogue. Through
movement, I seek to reveal how Brussels, with its extraordinary diversity and overlapping
identities, can be experienced as a single, breathing entity. By engaging with its
neighbourhoods, people, and materials, the project aims to map what “home” means within an
urban landscape built on coexistence.
In The Walking Home project, art does not happen in isolation but grows through interaction,
through walking, meeting, and listening. The journey becomes both a personal exploration and
a collective mirror, reflecting how we inhabit, share, and shape our cities together.
Encounters and Community
The Walking Home project is, above all, about encounters.
Each day, I will meet new people, artists, residents, students, families, elders, and community
organizers. Some will walk beside me for an hour; others may host me for a night, share a story,
or introduce me to someone new. These moments will shape the route, forming an organic web
of relationships and discoveries.
There will be no fixed path, only a spiral, beginning in my home district of Forest and expanding
through the city until I return.
The project thrives on presence: on conversation, tea shared from a thermos, or a pause to sit
with someone on one of the two folding chairs I carry with me.
I intend to connect, to let art emerge naturally through the gestures of everyday life.
Artistic Form and Process
As I walk, I will collect materials from the streets, fabric, thread, wire, and fragments of the city,
and transform them using my portable sewing machine and crochet hook. Each object will carry
a trace of a place or a person, forming a visible link in the chain of encounters that shape the
journey.
I will travel with a small cart, named Sybille L’Atelier Mobile, which carries my tools, a small
battery to power the sewing machine, and the materials gathered along the way. This moving
workspace allows me to create wherever I am, turning the act of making into an open,
accessible gesture.
The process will be documented through photographs, sketches, sound recordings, and short
reflections, shared online via an interactive digital map. This evolving platform will allow people
to follow the path, read the stories, and suggest new places or individuals to meet, serving as
both an archive and a living artwork, a portrait of Brussels in motion.
At the end of the journey, I hope to present the collected works in a public exhibition, ideally
within City Hall and local neighbourhood centers. The presentation will include the objects,
photographs, videos, and an embroidered map tracing the route, a tangible reflection of how art
can connect people across distance, background, and experience.
Presentation and Communication
The walking home project will exist simultaneously in the physical and digital realms.
Each day, I will share a visual diary, images, short texts, and sounds, inviting the public to walk
with me virtually or in person. Through these updates, a growing community will form, creating
an ongoing dialogue between the city and its inhabitants.
My approach remains poetic and intuitive. I see myself as a storyteller who listens through
movement. I often work with found materials because they carry the memory of previous lives;
through transformation, I reveal their quiet narratives and invite new ones to form. This project
continues that process, only this time, the city itself, together with its people, becomes the
material.
Context and Impact
The Walking Home project is a celebration of Brussels, its openness, its multicultural layers, and
its constant reinvention.
By moving through the city step by step, I want to encourage people to look at their
surroundings differently, rediscover empathy in the everyday, and find meaning in what is often
overlooked.
I hope to create spaces of trust, moments where people from different worlds meet, share, and
realize how much they actually have in common.
For the city and its partners, supporting The Walking Home project means supporting a
participatory, inclusive, and environmentally aware public artwork that transforms the ordinary
into the extraordinary. It’s an opportunity to highlight Brussels as a city of care, creativity, and
coexistence, a place where art, ecology, and community walk hand in hand.
Practical Framework
Duration: 9 months (spring to winter)
Starting Point: Forest district, Brussels
Method: Daily walking, collecting, sewing, documenting
Outputs:
● Daily online updates (text, photo, video)
● Interactive map documenting route and encounters
● Final exhibition and digital archive
● Collaborative journal co-created with participants
Support Needed:
● Financial support for living costs, materials, and documentation
● Logistical coordination with community centers and local institutions
● Technical development of the website and interactive map
● Media and communication partnerships
● construction of the mobile cart (“l’atelier mobile”) and its battery setup
Vision and Legacy
The Walking Home project is an act of trust in people, in the city, and in art’s ability to connect
them.
It is not about reaching a destination, but about rediscovering the path, presence, curiosity, and
the quiet beauty of the everyday.
Each step will be a gesture of attention. Each meeting, a story stitched into the fabric of
Brussels.
Together, they will form a portrait of a city walked, sewn, and shared, a collective, participatory
artwork that reminds us that home is not a place, but a process of connection.