Installations, sculptures, photo series and drawings transported the viewer to an insatiable desire to give meaning, a craving for a world view less defined by material and economic factors.
The artists mainly presented nature as an environment, which the visitor becomes part of by walking through it, such as the installations by Daniele Pario Perra, Yvette Poorter and Edward Clydesdale Thomson. TENT’s central space was dominated by a spectacular ceiling installation by artist Giuseppe Licari: a system of tree roots protruded into the space and transformed it into a dreamlike underworld.
Photographers Schilte & Portielje and Janine Schrijver transported te viewer to a garden of earthly delights and romantic city parks. Nature in the city was the focus of the work by magazine collective Club Donny. Maurice Meewisse sought the confrontation between unspoilt and manipulated nature.
The cycle of growth and decay – and particularly the poetry thereof – is the leitmotif in the nightshade paintings by Olphaert den Otter, and in the works by Anne van Eck, Wouter Venema, Marleen van Wijngaarden and Wim van Egmond.
In his installation, Diederik Klomberg formulated a layered commentary on the contemporary secret garden. More than just a place of beauty, it has become a place for illegal activity, for civil disobedience; or is it indeed a spot that provides space for the imagination?
Secret Gardens was curated by Willie Stehouwer and made possible by Mondriaan Fonds, Stichting Stokroos, and s’ Zomers.