The Belgian Exhibition That Strives to "Decenter" the West

“Bigger Picture: Connected worlds of Bruges 900–1550,” the inaugural exhibition of BRUSK, a new gallery attached to Bruges’s Groeningemuseum, aims to challenge the city’s image as isolated by highlighting its historical international networks. Guest curated by Oxford medievalist Peter Frankopan, the show also claims to “decenter” the West, creating a tension between emphasizing Bruges’s centrality and critiquing Eurocentric narratives. The exhibition includes more than 250 objects, ranging from chain mail and silk fragments to works by Titian, Jan van Eyck, and Hans Memling, alongside manuscripts, Turkish carpets, Viking artifacts, coins, and religious items. It is organized into four themed “worlds” with distinct enclosures and soundscapes, presented as dramatically lit zones connected by lines on the floor.

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