Een man zit op een stoel in een grote, lichte ruimte en leest voor uit een boek. Naast de man staat een luidspreker en een tafel met audiomateriaal en een laptop. Achteraan de ruimte hangen tekeningen van rode cirkels aan kabels.

A man sits on a chair in a big, bright room and reads from a book, sitting between a large speaker and a table with audio equipment and a computer on it. In the background, dozens of drawings of red circles hang throughout the room.

Sound / Lecture

REstART 2025: Brandon LaBelle — Meditation on X

American sound theorist Brandon LaBelle presents a lecture-performance on trauma, conflict, and restorative justice in relation to our “inner acoustics.”

A collaboration between European Forum for Restorative Justice & STUK

PRACTICAL

➤ Tuesday 9.12 - 20:30
➤ Duration: 50’
➤ STUK Labozaal - Naamsestraat 96, Leuven
➤ Free - with reservation via the button below / People with a REstART Festival Pass will receive their ticket at the door.
➤ Seated concert behind closed doors.

Book your free tickets here

Brandon LaBelle (°1969) is an American artist and sound theorist whose work has influenced the field of sound studies. The performance explores the inner dimension, bringing attention to the story of the body. As the somatic therapist Susan Raffo emphasizes, experiences of trauma and conflict, and the original wounds of intergenerational violence, extend across time and place, and are housed within individual bodies as deep archives. Based upon explorative workshops on Authentic Movement therapy held with collaborating artists, the performance gives narrative to ways of carrying all that resides within. Importantly, the deep archive emerges as an inner acoustic, where past experiences and multiple voices resound; from the victim to the offender, the witness to the oppressor, the parent to the child, these sound as figures housed within one’s inner dimension. The body as archive is approached as a dense ecosystem whose noises can be both a burden and a gift, suggesting that what we hold within can act as an important guide for grappling with the challenges of an external world. The performance is envisioned as a creative exploration of what it means to carry, to hold, and to listen, giving room to the dreaming background haunting restorative action.

REstART 2025

This performance is part of REstART 2025, a festival that brings together art and restorative justice to stimulate dialogue and transformation. REstART takes place from December 6 to 9, 2025, and is organized by the European Forum for Restorative Justice.

REstART is a unique international festival that merges art and restorative justice to inspire dialogue and transformation.

Through powerful performing arts, inspiring exhibitions, interactive workshops and immersive art experiences, the festival will explore how creativity can foster new narratives and experiences of justice for individuals and communities.

The festival engages artists, justice practitioners and the general public in meaningful conversations, using the arts to highlight lived experiences of harm and restorative justice and offering a deeper understanding of the alternative justice models.

REstART is more than an art festival: it is a movement for change in the criminal justice system and in societies as a whole. Join us in shaping the future of justice through arts and creativity!