[20]
Exhibition
The Phenomenal Park

Botanique Exhibitions
09 December 2021 — 09 February 2022
Brussels, BE

The Phenomenal Park was the result of an intense collaboration between TMML and more than forty students. A large number of works stemmed from Sanders and Noël’s Berlin residency period (2014). In 2019 and 2020, Sanders conducted reflections in Brussels with students from her course Mapping the Urban around ways of mapping a city and this, using a number of explorations according to the TMML methodologies. Similar trials followed the next year at BAC ART LAB at KU Leuven. The pandemic and lockdowns simultaneously slowed down and sped up the project: in 2020, the group collected even more objects than before.

The exhibition at the Botanique mostly included material and work resulting from the various explorations with students as well as from the three-day workshop held at the Botanique earlier in August 2021. Thus, The Phenomenal Park brought together more than a hundred objects and ideas in a sleek scenography reminiscent of the ground plan of a city or a park.

Without giving any real instructions, The Phenomenal Park provided visitors with a set of rules. After all, the dozens of objets trouvés, both sound and visual, graphic works, etc. addressed phenomenology, our psychology of perception. They needed to be activated mentally by the visitor. Sometimes almost surreal or absurd, The Phenomenal Park was full of light-hearted, often funny propositions. While The Phenomenal Park translated everyday objects into new imaginary possibilities, the exhibition made us think about the various codes that define the public space worldwide.