The ice and the wall were melting at the same time – Jezy Knez

While the natural character of the Hortillonnages is evident, the site remains a landscape shaped by and for humans (horticultural plots, ornamental gardens, tourist and heritage site, etc.). Without domestication, without the maintenance of the banks, the Hortillonnages in their current state would disappear. It is in this search for balance between so-called wild nature and controlled landscape, in a form of tension between the two, that this creation is inscribed.

Built with formwork planks, the installation blends into the Hortillonnages like a garden workshop. Two entities confront each other: on one side, a relief of sediment arranged on a platform that slightly raises it from the ground; on the other, a construction of stacked blocks. The two materials seem engaged in opposite movements, pushing each other away. The forces that characterize the Hortillonnages, their interdependence as well as the different temporalities that succeed each other, are re-examined here.

From this formal face-to-face, new dimensions appear, inviting open narratives and imaginaries. When you arrive at the site, it is a scene that you think you can distinguish. The blocks become a set, the sediment a character that interprets the natural mutations of the site, while reminding us of its artificial status through mise en abyme. When discovering the back of the installation, one perceives the spontaneous movement of a set of constructions that cluster around an impermeable void. The frameworks evoke an eternal construction site capable of expanding, but also the supplementary supports of an organism that is both offensive and defensive.