Je vois des songes dans mes yeux;

Et mon âme enclose sous verre,

Eclairant sa mobile serre,

Affleure les vitrages bleus.

O les serres de l’âme tiède,

Les lys contre les verres clos,

Les roseaux éclos sous leurs eaux,

Et tous mes désirs sans remède !

Je voudrais atteindre, à travers

L’oubli de mes pupilles closes,

Les ombelles autrefois roses

De tous mes songes entr’ouverts…

J’attends pour voir leurs feuilles mortes
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Reverdir un peu dans mes yeux;

J’attends que la lune aux doigts bleus

Entr’ouvre en silence les portes.

Ame de serre, Les Serres Chaudes,

Maurice Maeterlinck, 1889


Against the backdrop of a city slumbering with sleep, Generation Brussels sets out to gravitate people towards its deserted streets, amidst motionless facades and trees appearing mockingly in full bloom. This hushed décor subtly exudes thoughts and emotions that are left unexpressed – a landscape of inner lives trapped in isolation.
Living the current reality feels like being suffocated with air staying in place, of not being able to move anywhere, of being enclosed within.

Entangled in this claustrophobic zeitgeist, artists seek refuge in celebrations of botanical presence, in mesmerising dreams, gloomy fantasies or whimsical quotidian miracles. They evoke enthralling sceneries where limbs and branches fuse, where human and nature intertwine and coalesce into extensions of each other. Consoled by inevitable cosmic rhythms. Others hint at nighttime hallucinations, grotesquely depicting what is dear to them. In their surrender to subconscious wanderings, mythological beings and fairy-like creature rise as guiding protagonists. Yet some artists evoke acts of wonderment through the illumination of trivial phenomena. They use humour to invert rusty power hierarchies or to ignite magic within arbitrary events, unveiling bemusing absurdities to put potential despair within perspective.

Visual storytelling shapes these associations as escapist mise-en-scenes, dotted out throughout the city as an itinerary. They appear unassumingly in the city’s fabric: as vitrines becoming portals for potential flight routes, invitations to immerse oneself in enticing reverie.


Curator: Evelyn Simons



Participating Artist: Badi Rezzak, Bert Jacobs, Carlotta Bailly-Borg, Elise Péroi, Héloïse Rival, Hénène Meyer, Jot Fau, mountaincutters, Naomi Gilon, Siemen Van Gaubergen, Simon Demeuter, Tom Hallet