A Voyage into the Moon

Hiroshima, 6 August 1945: a sudden flash, a violent explosion, the atomic bomb. Somewhere on the Moon, a creature feels under threat. Shortly after that, the Japanese army receives a signal from a mysterious astronaut. Are we no longer alone in the universe?

A Voyage into the Moon is a body of recent work by the artistic duo Mira Sanders and Cédric Noël. The culture, veneration of the underground, and the history of the Land of the Rising Sun served as a source of inspiration for both artists as they wrote several fictional stories and created an extensive series of publications. In conjunction with the première of their new medium-length film Mission Report and the first showing of their new installations, the Musée du Botanique will be exhibiting their complete works created between 2017 and 2021 for the very first time.

Beautifully staged in a futuristic scenography, the exhibition combines reality and fiction. Mira Sanders and Cédric Noël play leapfrog with fantasy and reality, linking actual events to fanciful fabrications. The drawings, films, scale models, audio works, texts, and installations constitute a fascinating and witty journey through the museum.

Do not be afraid of the thousand viscous legs of the mukade centipede! Immerse yourself in this poetic twilight zone: take a Voyage into the moon.

Written and directed by: Mira Sanders & Cédric Noël
Curator: Ive Stevenheydens
Exhibition director: Grégory Thirion
Exhibition coordinator: Mathilde Manche
Music « Mission Report »: Tujiko Noriko
Costume design: Louise de la Tour
Live at Museum Botanique: Tujiko Noriko, Mathieu Serruys, Jente Waerzeggers

The Phenomenal Park

How do we perceive the space around us every day? How do streets, squares, parks, and the city influence our own nature? Since 2014, Mira Sanders and Cédric Noël have been behind the artistic collective The Mental Masonry Lab, a research laboratory that places the imagination at the very core of experiments and reflections articulated around public space and urban constructions.

The Mental Masonry Lab operates according to a specific method structured around three stages. Firstly, there is observation: the exploration of urban space as a wanderer – meandering as a form of marvelling. Secondly, they approach the archiving of elements and impressions as a constantly evolving dynamic process. Finally, The Mental Masonry Lab considers the laboratory as a training field where the imagination can be combined with concrete things, with facts.

Using a sober scenography reminiscent of a city or park plan, The Phenomenal Park compiles more than 100 objects and ideas. In addition to a selection of works produced by the duo in Berlin, the exhibition primarily features work from projects developed in Brussels and Leuven. To this end, Mira Sanders & Cédric Noël have worked hand-in-hand with some forty international master's students from the Faculty of Architecture Campus Sint-Lucas, KULeuven.

Without providing any actual instructions, The Phenomenal Park offers visitors a range of playing rules. The dozens of sound and audio-visual found objects, graphic pieces, etc., all play on the phenomenology and our psychology of perception that we have to mentally activate. Sometimes almost surrealistically or absurdly, The Phenomenal Park brims over with playful, often humorous proposals. While The Phenomenal Park translates everyday objects into new imaginary opportunities, the exhibition encourages us to reflect on the very different codes that shape public space throughout the world.

Written and directed by: TMM Lab (Mira Sanders & Cédric Noël)

with Sally Alawady, Dana Alsayegh, Leen Claessens, Rosa Cooke, Gustave Curtil, Monika Dauksaite, Margot De Caster, Jolien De Nijs, Charlotte De Pauw, Arthur Dekeyser, Wannes Deyaert, Ragesh Gopal, Evi Hellebaut, Julien Jacob, Alexander Kyuchukov, Camille Lambreth, Marylise Violeta Maroye, Alejandro Andrés Maturana, Elisabeth Milde, Yvonne Catalina Neira Rivera, Ugne Neveckaite, Ruben Otter, William David Pauwels Hurtado, Roope Topias Piipponen, Alba Maria Tierz Puyuelo, Amber Savonet, Zita Van Den Bosch, Jonathan Van Hove, Ine Vancutsem, Hena Wang, Charlotte Winnen, Marta Ewa Wisniewska, Lin Xiang, Theresa Gertrud Zschabitz.

Co-curatorship: TMM Lab & Ive Stevenheydens
Exhibition director: Grégory Thirion
Exhibition coordinator: Mathilde Manche
Production assistant: Jolien De Nijs
Trainee assistant: Fengdan Qin