• Opening times

  29/03/2025 - 11/01/2026: * monday: from 13:00 to 18:00 * tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday and sunday: from 10:00 to 18:00

Far from being confined to museums or books, history plays a significant role in everyone's lives: visits to places that have become tourist sites, commemorations and re-enactments of events, excavations, conservation or collections of ancient objects. Interactions with the past can take many forms, and have a variety of purposes, such as ensuring links within a community, building identity, having fun or remembering certain tragedies of the past. In order to evoke all these links that the people living in Europe can have with history, the exhibition ‘Presence of the Past. A European Album’ is divided into seven main sections: The tourist appeal of historic sites, places of pilgrimage that are sometimes enjoyed simply to fill up our social networks. Commemorations which, in today's post-heroic era, highlight soldiers and civilian victims in rituals of remembrance or appeasement, without focusing solely on military leaders. Historical re-enactments, which have been practised for decades but have recently been gaining in popularity. The manufacture of heroes, to examine the mechanisms at work in creating cults of personality, sometimes spontaneous, sometimes imposed by the state. De-commemoration, to assess possible solutions to monuments inherited from bygone eras, such as those associated with colonisation, slavery or dictatorial regimes. The past as landscape, when nature gradually reclaims places marked by tragic histories. And the historians of everyday life, those citizens who go in search of old objects, collecting them or exhibiting them to anchor themselves in the past of their family, country or community. For this exhibition, the House of European History is partnering with Brussels-based Atelier de photographie de l'École nationale supérieure des arts visuels de La Cambre. Six of the 21 photographers whose work will be presented have studied at this college, and will thus showcase the younger generation’s take on how history permeates our daily lives. Visitors are encouraged to explore the historian in them through interactive activities in the exhibition.

• Opening times

  27/06/2025 - 31/10/2025: * monday: from 13:00 to 18:00 * tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday and sunday: from 10:00 to 18:00

Presented in an audio-visual setting which recreates the atmosphere of the city, from its metro, parks, and people’s homes, the stories told in “Raising our roots” contrast European history as shown in the museum, with intimate realities from Brussels and narratives on migration throughout time. Visitors will experience the in-between-ness of the ever-changing city that is Brussels. The participatory process The members of the Echoes collective - selected through a call for application - were invited to work together in a year-long project. They identified unheard voices and missing narratives in history, and developed a particular interest in changing the way migration histories are told. The Echoes participants then searched the streets and houses of Brussels for untold stories and personal accounts of migration and belonging. They transformed these stories into audio-visual content, which amplifies voices of history and of Brussels alike, raising their roots into the light.

Slow Looking Saturday is a museum series taking place during the temporary exhibition ‘Presence of the Past – a Photo Album’. Every first Saturday of the month at 14:30, come and delve into a topic of the exhibition through specific photographs for an hour. A facilitator will accompany you and the group to look at a photograph at a different pace and take the time to reflect on it. Collectively the sessions will cover all the rooms in the exhibition, through the slow looking practice and learning of historical facts based on the group’s observations and reflections. Please register in advance for the session you want to attend, to secure your spot and get a reminder before the event. Registered visitors will have priority, but you can also drop by the museum and see if spots are available on the day. To ensure a pleasant experience, the ideal group size is about 15 people . If not registered in advance, the “first come, first served” rule will be applied. Slow Looking Saturday calendar 5 July – Destination: History Focus on ‘Mediterranean. The Continuity of Man’ by Nick Hannes – a look to the - sometimes troubling - tourist behaviours in heritage sites. 2 August – De-commemoration Focus on ‘Washing Away the Past’ by Ria Pacquée – which traces the cleaning of a monument of Leopold II in Oostende, Belgium, that activists had doused with red paint. 6 September – Re-enactments Focus on ‘Nostalgia for Mud’ by Hugo Passarello Luna – a contemporary look through a World War One camera at re-enactment events. 4 October – The past as landscape Focus on ‘The Last Stand’ by Marc Wilson – a highlight on the physical remnants of the war in nature. 1 November - Museum closed, no Slow Looking Saturday taking place. 6 December – Let’s make history! Focus on the sets of pictures available in the “Let’s make history!” exhibition interactive – this session draws links with the rest of the exhibition and records details that could vanish soon! Practical information - Meet the guide at 14:30 in the Fables Room, just before the entrance of the temporary exhibition. - Please be aware that to enter the museum, you would pass through security checks which can take some time. - Please arrive 10 minutes in advance. The activity will be held in English. - The activity is suitable for people aged 16 years old and over. - Registration is recommended in advance.

In the Fables Room of our museum, the walls are carefully decorated with many beautiful and colourful animals from the fables of Jean de la Fontaine. But, oh no! Some of the animals have escaped again! They want to learn more about the works of art and creative artistic techniques in our museum collection! Can you help us find them? One animal is hiding on each floor of the exhibition - they want you to take a closer look at the artwork they have chosen and try their artistic challenges. During each of the five stops, the animals invite you to look at the art in a different way. In our museum, looking from different angles and perspectives is very important, because there are many sides to a story, and many sides to history! Ask yourself different questions about the art - what shape is it? What does it represent? Does it tell a story? Why is it in a museum? At the end of the trail, come back to the Fables Room where you will find drawing materials to add to our collaborative artwork, and browse through the books of La Fontaine’s Fables from Bimbi Books, a multilingual children’s bookshop based in Ixelles. Are you ready to take the trail and find the animals? Practical information - The trail is available in English, French, Dutch and German. - The museum and all activities are free of charge for everyone. - This trail is suitable for the whole family from ages six to 99. - No pre-registration required - just drop in and get started at the Family Kiosk! - The museum is wheelchair & stroller accessible with baby changing facilities and a picnic area.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which concluded with the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995. Sarajevo’s landscape and people, who went through a lengthy and deadly siege, still bear the scars of that war. In 2021, artist Smirna Kulenović (b. 1994) and a group of 100 women planted 1,000 calendula plants in the former war trenches on Zlatište hill. This created a living monument, and started a process of social and ecological healing. The exhibition Presence of the Past – a European Album features Smirna Kulenović’s community-based performance “Our Family Garden” in its section on “post-heroic commemorations”. As part of the Through the Lens Of museum series, the artist will share her personal story and the significance of the “Our Family Garden” project. The language of the event is English. Entering the building involves security checks, please plan enough time in advance. Programme 18:15-19:00 - “End of Yugoslavia” guided tour by curator Simina Bădică 19:00-19:45 - Talk by Smirna Kulenović 19:45-20:30 - Q&A session with the audience Until 21:00 - Event participants can visit the exhibition Presence of the Past About the speaker Smirna Kulenović is a transdisciplinary artist, researcher, educator, and ritualist whose practice weaves art, ecology, and memory. Born in Sarajevo under siege, she explores how embodied rituals, plant intelligence, and ancestral practices heal landscapes and communities fractured by war, displacement, and ecological violence. Working across the Balkans, with a focus on the Mediterranean bioregion, she co-creates pilgrimages, films, installations, and educational projects that reconnect ancestral wisdom with future resilience. Her ongoing PhD Research at UdK Berlin, “Witchcraft for the Wounded Earth”, bridges eco-somatics, decolonial feminism, and ritual art, transforming collective wounds into acts of care and re-rooting. Through her work, Kulenovic cultivates spaces where art becomes alchemy, tending to the resilience of both humans and more-than-human worlds. Her artistic versatility extends to documentary film, with both Our Family Garden (2021) and The Test of Maturity (2012) winning awards in European and American film festivals.