Earlier this month, those spaces stepped into the spotlight thanks to the inaugural Brussels Art Week (5-8 September), which staked a claim for the city's distinct, contemporary voice amid a crowded art calendar. At the heart of Brussels Art Week was a newly commissioned social space by the British artist Zoe Williams, titled A Tip Inn. For many participating galleries, Brussels Art Week offered both opportunity and risk. For Irene Laub Gallery, active since 2016, the week is an exciting format: “Brussels Art Week is a new way of organising things, it's dynamic and another way of discovering contemporary art in the city.”As its first edition demonstrates, Brussels Art Week offers something entirely different from other European art capitals. In a shifting art market hungry for alternatives, Brussels Art Week offers an example of how discovery, rather than competition, might lead the way forward.