Clearing the dancefloor: how club culture became a museum piece

In the pandemic, nightclubs have been turned into exhibition spaces, switching the craze for museums evoking clubs. It's throwing fresh perspective on what dancing is even for

The ttttssshhhhhh of a smoke machine breaks the silence as a red spotlight blinks to life, illuminating social distancing markers on a dancefloor polished smooth by the shuffling of feet. The soundsystem kicks into gear with an anthem by techno star Dave Clarke. But the DJ booth is empty, and the only ravers here are the ones frozen in time, trapped behind glass as photo displays.

This is Echoing Through Eternity, the pop-up museum exhibit currently showing at Fuse, a venue in the hip Marolles district of Brussels that has been serving its community for the last 100 years, first as a cinema and then a Latin discotheque before emerging as one of Belgium's best techno clubs. The exhibition features slick posters, wacky flyers (rubber gloves, fake driving licences) and colourful photos from the club's storied past. Most of the material has come from its own archive, but there are personal items here too, submitted by the club's devoted community after an open call on social media. Starting with its LGBTQ roots, the exhibit winds through the main dancefloor, with a stop off at the DJ booth, and ends in a three-minute club simulation upstairs.