Secret Garden

Selected and picked from along outdoor pathways, Marie-Hélène Sion’s otherworldly plant arrangements have been both modelled and morphed into moving 3D structures by Petermfriess. These projections of a world of unknown plant species, of harmonies, colours and shapes, reconstitute landscapes through their entangled appearances, and act as a constant passageway between the real and the unreal. Monya Ghabantani’s blocks of deep colour allow us to enter into a myriad of shades and shadows. Chemigrams, photo-chemical reactions between gelatine and iron salts, draw in a pure darkness. Laure Winants’ work is an ongoing experiment with raw materials. It is a meeting between the physicality of paint and photographic emulsion, where the canvas is replaced with Washi, Kozo, and even Shiramine paper. Olivier Guyaux revisits a series of landscapes in the Sonian Forest in 1900. The pictorialist prints are attributed to the “Cercle Photographique d’Ixelles” (The Ixelles Photography Group) 1893-1914. This was one of the most active groups of its kind for promoting photography as an art form in its own right. These antique prints were produced from original plates using the traditional method. As the ultimate travellers, birds can blur the lines of manmade frontiers -and photographic framing- to find secret oases. From below, we can spot keen eyes expressing unknown wisdom and emotion with which they observe us from their hiding places. Who is observing whom? Carole Moncoquet prefers lighter tones, to fully experience the gradient and texture that are on display in the tropical animal kingdom. This greenhouse of the imagination is completed by ‘PASSAGES’, a short film by Gianluca Colitta. The film tells a story of intersections and transformations. A woman comes out of the past…but what for? She is searching for someone or something whilst on a wander through a secret garden filled with memories – This film invites its audience to go on a wander of their own and get lost in the fantastical beauty of this place.