©Yann Monel
Tucked away on one of the islands in the Hortillonnages, a small oasis is created. Here the visitor is submerged in a mosaic of water and greenery. This installation by Mirte van Laarhoven marks a tribute to new life. At its center lies a pond made of ceramic, from which plant-like forms rise out of the ground—sharp, fresh, and full of potential. Glazed in a vivid, bright green color, the work evokes the energy of early spring and the joy of growth and renewal.
The islands in the Hortillonnages just slightly emerge above the water. They are robust and pristine but also fragile and prone to maintenance. What is land and what is water is a shifting boundary, not to be taken for granted. Simultaneously the banks of the mirroring surface provide a rich habitat for trees, bushes, grasses and all kinds of waterfowl, who build their nests in this swampy terrain. This interaction of natural forces is reflected in the installation. The artwork pays tribute to new life emerging on the verge of land and water. But underneath this celebration lies a deeper tension: The installation explores the duality between promise and impermanence, between vitality and decay. Cracks in the surface hint at an urge to freeze a fleeting moment—the fragile beginning of a new season. If held too long, that short moment risks collapsing on itself.
The work catches the moment when spring, so urgent and new, threatens to freeze mid-bloom. Life, in its earliest breath, is always on the verge of either flourishing—or perishing. The work is hand-crafted out of ceramics, with a green glaze that feels inviting, but which carries its own complexity. Historically, green has been a difficult and dangerous color in art and ceramics, often created using toxic materials like arsenic and copper oxide. That contradiction—between beauty and risk—runs throughout the work.
The work is made during a residency at EKWC —the European Ceramic Work Centre—. Here a glaze with harmless ingredients was developed to acquire the bright green color. The larges pond is built out of one piece and was fired in a kiln measuring 2,40 m by 1,20 m of floorspace. Afterwards the slab was broken into shards. Next to this Mirte created a series of tubes with an extruding machine, and cut and chopped them into shoots. This process of smashing and chopping addresses the conflict of being in, or out of control, likewise to the interaction with nature. Fragile Emergence invites quiet reflection.
It is a space of stillness and reflection—a place to ponder what lies beneath the surface, and how the fragile promise of life might take shape? And what might become of a fresh promise, given time and space to grow? On this island, visitors are encouraged to pause, to observe, and to lose themselves in a layered landscape of green.
With this installation, Mirte van Laarhoven once again sculpts a living landscape—an ephemeral threshold where nature and art entwine in a shimmering tension between what is, and what might be.