Where’s the reception?

Is a reception desk just a piece of furniture or a promise of hospitality?

For the opening night of Sea is for Stories, Tea is for Telling, Globe Aroma invites you to reimagine hospitality through a speculative writing session.

We will start with a warm apero prepared by Nicole Woutchoko, and then explore the idea of “the reception desk”. What if hospitality is not a desk, but a combination of gestures, atmospheres, languages and shared care?

Based on recent visits to places that are already experimenting with inclusive or innovative forms of reception (De Nomade in Leuven, Le Récif of Poisson sans Bicyclette, GC De Kriekelaar, GC Ten Noey, and CC Belgica in Dendermonde), we bring together impressions, tensions and inspiring examples. We write small speculative prototypes: sketches of what a hospitality space could look like, without departing from the rules we have inherited.

Together with artists, partners, visitors, architects and other stakeholders, we are exploring:

• How do we want to arrive in a space?
• Who welcomes whom, and how?
• What infrastructure is needed to welcome someone?
• How do infrastructures of reception (counters, doors, signage, roles) sometimes create exclusion or barriers?
• What does a building look like when it is designed from a perspective of care rather than control?

This session is part of an ongoing imagination and design exercise around the House for Collective Imagination, Globe Aroma’s place in Moutstraat, which we are currently co-designing together with a permanent-temporary community.
Instead of designing a “public building” in the traditional sense, with fixed functions, counters, waiting areas, toilets, entrance gates, rest areas and security, we are first dismantling the norms of how public cultural spaces usually function.

This evening is one of the first collective explorations of what “arriving” at Globe Aroma could mean. The stories, images and small provocations that we write together will guide the participatory design of our future hospitality space.

18h30: welcome and apéro (the food served will contain halal meat and gluten, with vegetarian options also available)

19h00: start

Tickets ➡️ https://kaaitheater.be/en/agenda/25-26/wheres-reception

By & with Tasneem Nagi & Heleen Verheyden ⎸ thanks to De Nomade, Poisson sans Bicyclette, GC De Kriekelaar, GC Ten Noey, CC Belgica, Nicole Woutchoko