The bookshop rile* has set up a temporary bookshop in our festival centre in the Beursschouwburg. Here you can find a selection of books by festival artists or on festival-related themes, including a selection of books linked to the Free School - The School of Fireflies. Here's a closer look at five books to complement the Free School programme — perfect for discovering before, during, and beyond the festival. We’re delighted to share this collection of thought-provoking literature with you.

This year's Free School, The School of Fireflies, refers to an article by Pier Paolo Pasolini in which he reflects on — and mourns — the disappearance of fireflies in the countryside due to industrialisation, pollution, and urbanisation. In this year’s Free School, we explore and reveal all that is under threat of disappearing from our cities and landscapes through workshops, talks, poetry, and film screenings focused on active resistance to gentrification, mortality, and genocide. In doing so, we try to amplify these little lights — quirky yet magical — and help them spread further.

If you’re unsure where to begin with the current collection, we have a few suggestions:

1. Jack Halberstam - Wild Things: The Disorder Of Desire
2. Pier Paolo Pasolini - La rabbia / Anger
3. Areej Ashhab & Ailo Ribbas - The Fast-Growing Stinking Escaped Waste-Loving Wall-Breaching Self-Cloning Other-Than-Natural No-Man's Tree
4. Anna Colin - Espaces pédagogiques alternatifs – De l'utopie à l'institutionnalisation
5. Carolina Valente Pinto - Archival Textures - Posting

The School of Fireflies take place from 25 to 30 May. More info & programme

Practical info - Temporary bookshop by rile* 

Of course, feel free to visit the bookshop and take a look for yourself. It’s open daily from 14:00 - 20:00 until the end of the festival on May 31.

All books can also be bought in the rile* bookshop (Rue des Commerçants/Koopliedenstraat 62, 1000 Brussels) or online via www.rile.space.