BRUGES.- During the hottest months of 2024, the Bruges Triennial once again brings contemporary art and architecture to the streets of the UNESCO World Heritage City. From 13 April through 1 September, under the banner of “Spaces of Possibility”, the triennial challenges visitors to think about the future of Bruges and cities across the world. As partner of TRIBRU24, Musea Brugge presents ‘Rebel Garden’: the most urgent art exhibition of our times, which examines the relationship between people and nature.

The new top art exhibition from Musea Brugge is driven by the most pressing theme of recent decades: the decline of our planet and the impact of this on man and our environment. Musea Brugge has selected several works from its collection and invited over fifty contemporary artists from around twenty countries to portray the layered and often loaded relationship between people and the natural world. The result is a rebellious, many-voiced art exhibition with a comprehensive public programme inviting reflection on the future of our planet.

Old and contemporary art

Rebel Garden unites art from across the world and from various eras. In nine themes, spread around three top museums, contemporary art engages in a dialogue with and is confronted by old art from the museum’s collection and on loan. Artists such as Guillaume Bijl, Ben Sledsens, Christine Ödlund, Giuseppe Penone, Daniël Dewaele, Rose Wylie and Per Kristian Nygård, whose garden sculpture is one of the eye-catchers of Rebel Garden on Gruuthuseplein, stand alongside top works of art from the collection, including Roger Raveel, Emile Claus and Otobong Nkanga. These are all artists who, in their own unique way, are investigating the relationship between man and the natural world.

The garden as a refuge and a battleground

At the beginning of the third millennium, we live in a world in permanent crisis. Rebel Garden is a meeting place for various voices, each of which uses its own experience to examine the urgency of the climate debate and current environmental crisis and formulate a series of actions. Based on the central theme of the ‘garden’, the exhibition observes the state of our planet and the relationship between the planet, humans and all other inhabitants.

The exhibition approaches the garden in various ways. The garden in Rebel Garden is part of our ideal living space. It is an inspiring and even healing location, a sanctuary for people and other living organisms. At the same time, the garden is not tamed easily: in the delineated piece of nature where man determines order and the habitat suffers as a result, nature rebels. Gardens are also local barometers that indicate the state of our planet, a place where the effects of ecological change are becoming increasingly visible. Just consider for a moment, threatened pollinators such as bees and other insects. As a result of climate changes, our gardens, as well as our parks, woods, forests and the planet as a whole, are coming under increasing pressure.

Through top works of art from home and abroad, Rebel Garden is both an ode to nature and a wake-up call: the hope for renewed dialogue and a deeper awareness of the close connection between the planet and all its inhabitants.

9 garden landscapes

In the Groeningemuseum, the Gruuthusemuseum and in the attic of the Museum Sint-Janshospitaal, visitors wander through the gnarled and contaminated landscapes of a damaged planet. The familiar image of the idyllic, safe garden is merged with the impact of unchecked pollution. Every landscape tells its own story around current and social topics, such as the effects of global warming, the sixth mass extinction and climate activism, man’s symbiosis with nature and the relationship between artist and garden. A selection of works from the museums’ collections also provides the anchor and departure point for the nine themes which, in concert with the contemporary artists, are shaped into nine artistic garden landscapes.

And finally, don’t be surprised if you suddenly see a large fungus next to ‘The Last Judgement’ by Hieronymous Bosch. Alongside the artistic landscape, various ‘disruptive plants’ will spring up in unexpected places. A green invasion of plants, flowers, swarms and fungi sculptures leading their own lives in the museum. With their sculptures, the artists Maartje Korstanje (NDL), Caroline Coolen (BEL), Sofie Muller (BEL), Tony Matelli (USA), Paul Harfleet (GBR) and Arjan Vanmeenen (BEL) refer back to the responses from and resistance by nature.