is an investigative performance and/or installation about the relationship between humans and plants, which questions a number of important issues : Can the relationship between people and plants transcend the unlimited mutual exploitation? What can we learn about ourselves if we consider plants as the significant order and what kind of horror can this lead to? What happens when plants break out of the background of our living rooms? When searching for an answer to these questions, I call on a number of horror movies in which plants frighten us. Sometimes they attack us head-on, but often the horror lies in ominously waving branches and rustling bushes. Colonization runs like a red thread through the story: colonization of territory by humans and plants, colonization of organisms, bodies and spirits… The work spans 3 different locations where the human-vegetal relation comes to a climax, where the relation between humans and plants takes a stark form: the nature reserve, the plantation and the botanical garden. Places with a direct link to a colonial past. Places in which the relationship between people and plants seems tightly aligned. At least it seems.
The Horror Garden was acquired by the Middelheim Museum and became part of the Middelheim Collection in 2022 in the form of an installation and in a poster format.
Concept and development – Gosie Vervloessem, Dramaturgy – Einat Tuchman, Sound recording and editing – David Elchardus, Poster design – Joud Toamah, Print and print advice – Gerard Leysen/Affreux
Time: 45’ — chapter 1 / 90’ — three chapters
Format: Lecture-performance, installation and poster
Support: Vlaamse gemeenschap, Middelheim Museum
Production: CCStrombeek, De School Van Gaasbeek, WpZimmer
Part of the Middelheim Museum collection since 2023
