Wild nature in the city

Wild nature in the city - An installation project for the urban environment - Brussels 2008-2009

Project description

Wild nature in the city is an art project for a public space. It introduces a piece of wild nature in the city by displacing a sample of nomadic vegetation.

The Installation in the environment (in-situ)

The citizens of Brussels wake up one summer morning surrounded by an absurd abundance of plants and vegetation. This is the surprise, the intrusion of the marvellous and the unexpected in the city of Magritte, Surrealism and endless possibilities. Wild nature invades the city. The loss of nature in the urban space is a chronic anxiety of the city-dweller faced with the gradual disappearance of green spaces in the metropolis. Five hundred and forty square meters of wild nature is introduced into the city and covers place Sainte-Catherine: a little detonation of vegetation in the heart of Brussels. A piece of untilled soil is grafted into an urban and inorganic setting using a patch of vegetation taken from the ground soil of a wild meadow. The nomadic vegetation will be dense and composed largely of indigenous plants, wild flowers and wheat grass... a dislocation of wild nature in the city and not a pastiche of nature in a public space. This is a ready-made: it is not a created object. I take over a pre-existent phenomenon, a piece of spontaneous nature, and make it evident through one act of displacement. At the end of the event, the patches of vegetation will be replanted in their original environment.