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Rue des Ateliers 25, 1080 Molenbeek
00.32 (2) 411.74.95
Copyright © Foyer 2020
Johan Leman, 16 July 2026
It is not my intention with this blog to already tell everything about what we have heard from new Italo-Brussels residents based on 77 interviews while preparing the exhibition Italo2000 . But I do want to share a few observations.
It concerns at least 10,000 Italians who have come to live in Brussels since 2000. For them, migration was not a necessity, but the choice of a place that offered more opportunities. They are often highly educated or skilled workers, and usually relatively young.
What is interesting and somewhat surprising is how positively they view life in Brussels. I should add immediately that they often live in Ixelles or Etterbeek, or in both Woluwes or Uccle, but some also live in Anderlecht, Saint-Josse or Jette.
In Brussels they feel at home and accepted, which is not the case, for example, when they go to Flanders, where they are still seen as foreigners. As one Italian who guides Italian tourists in Belgium notes: “When I speak Italian in Antwerp to my tourists from Italy, we feel looked at strangely. It is not in Brussels that I feel like a migrant, but in Flanders.”
LGBTQ Italians also perceive Brussels as a safe place, and for some, it is precisely because of the greater freedom and positive recognition they experience in Brussels that they chose to leave Italy.
This exhibition, taking place at MigratieMuseumMigration, opens to the public on 18 September (with the opening reception on 17 September at 5:00 p.m.) and offers visitors a unique opportunity to discover how Italians who have settled in Brussels and Belgium since 2000 perceive their new city and country. The exhibition runs until January 30, 2027.
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