For teens and adults, layout of the photo book with Marina Cox, collage, folding and making notebooks with Marianne Fripiat, Japanese calligraphy with Satoru Toma, for children, the comic book with Sarah Debove extend the « notebook » experience. And then to discover or lead new experiences …

For adults and teens

• Sculpture / The living model 

With Julie Doutrelepont from monday 26 to friday august 30 from 10h to 17h

Price: 165 € and registration through this link.

Yes the living model will be present but this time the nude will be treated in the manner of Picasso, Giacometti …

• Photography/ Designing and making a photo book

With Marina Cox from monday 26 to friday august 30 from 10h to 17h

Price: 165 € and registration through this link.

Images – like words – make sense in their juxtaposition.
This workshop proposes to start with you a reflection on the book of photographs and to accompany your first steps in the realization of a personal project. You will go through the different stages, from conception to realization (editing, sequencing, layout, typography, realization of a model on paper and a layout software).

The participants will bring 50 photographs resulting from a first editing (in high resolution on digital medium and on paper), 100 photographs to widen the choice (not selected, on digital medium), texts and possibly a selection of 3 or 4 books reference.

• Japanese calligraphy / 書 道 Sho do – Breathing and gesturing

With Satoru Toma from monday 26 to friday august 30 from 10h to 17h

Price: 180 € and registration through this link. 

The Japanese calligraphy workshop is based on the Japanese language using pineau and Indian ink. In this workshop, you will work especially the « Kanji » – ideogram.
Starting with kanji very simple as 一(ichi – un), 川(kawa – river), you will learn more and more complicated kanji by developing different styles of writing 火(hi – fire), 炎(honoö – flame ). The Japanese writing, the sign drawn by the brush is very strongly linked to the movement of the body and the breath of the calligrapher. Before looking for a visual result, we try to feel the birth of a breath and a gesture. This workshop is open to all levels.

For teens

• Mechanical bike / retap’ bike

With Joëlle Carpentier from monday 26 to friday 30 august from 9h to 16h

Price: 135 € and registration through this link. 

Choose a second-hand bike and give it a second life.
At the end of the internship, you leave with the bike and know-how in mechanics.

For children

• Comic/ Album

With Sarah Debove from monday 26 to friday 30 august from 9h to 16h

Come create an album or a comic.
You will learn storytelling techniques for the comics and the album. You will mix traditional tales and what we observe around us. You will wander in nature. And of this nature, your observations and your walks you will write a story entirely in drawing. At the end of the internship everyone will have their own story, a real unique book!

children from 6 to 9 years

Price: 135 € and registration through this link.
nursery from 8:30 am and until 5 pm

For more workshops visit their website. 

The post Several arts and crafts workshops for young and adults this summer appeared first on Brussels Express.

Keen to face a new challenge, I registered for the kimchi class at Fermenthings, a small shop that specializes in crafted beers, kombucha and other fermented products. Most importantly, you can buy starters for kombucha or sourdough and they also sell kimchi and miso. Classes take around 2-3h and teach you the basics about fermentation, while showing you that it’s not as difficult as you might’ve thought.

We started the kimchi class with a bottle of kombucha and some homemade 2-month-old kimchi, one 1-month-old and one made with light ingredients only, so-called “white kimchi”. We then moved to the preparation, which meant first, salting a big pot with water so it reached the saltiness of sea water and then soaking small cut white cabbage and Asian cabbage in the water for around an hour. During this hour, we chopped the leeks, carrot, garlic, ginger and some pears for the white kimchi. To the red mixture we added a lot of Korean chili flakes, honey instead of sugar and because the kimchi we made at Fermenthings was vegan, instead of the fish sauce to start the fermenting process, we used pickle juice and apple cider vinegar. After everything was poured into a big container (except for the cabbage) I volunteered for getting my hands dirty and started mixing everything so it turned into a moist, sticky dark red paste that smelled amazingly spicy and rich in flavor. We added the cabbage (the salt water drained) and I continued massaging the cabbage with the seasoning so it soaked up all the beauty of the paste.

To prevent us from leaving hungry, we prepared some dumplings towards the end of the class, filled with kimchi – not ours – and Asian mushrooms, which were boiled in a miso broth. Simple and very delicious.

Once finished we started filling the jars we brought along with the homemade white and red kimchi. I left the jars on room temperature for two days and then put some weight on the cabbage and transferred the jar to the fridge. It’s sitting there now, producing beautiful fermentation juices and ready to be eaten after two weeks minimum, or longer if you like the fermentation to be more intensive.

What I’ll do with all that kimchi? It’s super healthy so I’ll just dig into the jar and eat it like this. I might make some Tofu Schnitzels with it, or maybe some dumplings, we’ll see.

If you want to take part in one of the Fermenthings classes check their Facebook Page here.

They’re moving soon, but I’m sure there’ll be a lot of new exciting classes in the new year.

Gotten hungry? Try Fermenthing’s recipe for kimchi:

80g mixture Korean chilli powder and dried chilli flakes

120g of fine chopped leek

2 gloves of minced garlic

20g of grated ginger

1 shot of fish sauce (or pickle juice)

1 tablespoon of salt (seasalt, as pure as possible)

1 tablespoon of sugar (unrefined)

Mix it all together until you can make little balls out of the paste, it has to make a squichy sound and feel quite compact. Note: there is no perfect kimchi paste, it is the one you like that will be the perfect one. See this as the basic that works, add other ingredients, or change some of the proportion. I like that mine has that smell of grated ginger coming through at the end. I don’t make it to spicy, but I add chopped yellow or red peppers in it if I want to give it a certain punch.

The post The art of fermenting made easy by Fermenthings, Brussels appeared first on Brussels Express.