Thinking back on the 2025 Publiek Park Walking Guide and finnisage tour I contributed to last year.
For the book I collaborated with Anna Laganovksa @samulsu to narrate key moments from Botanique Brussels and Plantentuin Meise’s histories, thinking about how these stories could be quilted together to show the patchworked nature of the two public gardens, which appear separate but are very much connected.
During finnisage we wove these moments into the final guided tour by @koi_persyn@jefdeclercq_@samulsu@adriennevdw to show how the new commissions by the eleven artists of Publiek Park 2025 answered the architecture and history of Meise’s garden; the Victoriakaas first designed to house Amazonian lilies in Belgium, the Forestry Museum born through the meeting of science, religion and education in 19th C Belgium, and the global plant trade.
Publication design by @verhelstvictor@corbinmahieu
Finissage photos @larsduchateau
The Grid Begins is a sculpture by Lisa Young commissed by @broached_consulting@broached_commissions that I had the pleasure to work on whilst at Broached Commissions.
The Grid Begins reproduces a map depicting the first three years of land sales in Melbourne, following the adoption of Hoddle’s Grid as a system and tool for town planning and land division. Close inspection shows that the cost of land in Melbourne more than tripled for plots of a similar size between 1837 and 1839. By using a public record document as the basis for this sculpture, the work highlights Melbourne’s history of urban development, where land ownership was established from the earliest years as an avenue to acquire and retain wealth.
The Grid Begins is by Lisa Young @lisayoun_g with creative direction by Broached Commissions and technical assistance by @k_k_a__p . It was fabricated by Huw Severn Smith and @axolotlgroup and documented by Dean Lever.
Looking back at Publiek Park, a project by @jefdeclercq_@samulsu@koi_persyn and @adriennevdw that I was lucky to assist on this year.
Publiek Park is a nomadic contemporary art project which explores public city parks and gardens as its exhibition grounds. The project invites both international and local artists to create artworks that draw inspiration from the surroundings in a site-sensitive manner.
In 2025 Publiek Park brought together eleven international and local artists to present newly commissioned artworks across two historically connected sites: Plantentuin Meise and its former home in the heart of Brussels, the Jardin Botanique.
Artists responded to the specific textures of the sites—their shifting ecologies, architectural traces, and entangled histories. Publiek Park unfolds as a walking route through the shadows of the colonial past to future fictions, from botanical research to reflections on contemporary life.
Publiek Park is founded and curated by Jef Declercq, Anna Laganovska, Koi Persyn and Adriënne van der Werf. In 2025 the project included commissions by Bianca Baldi, Gabi Dao, Elise El Yousfi, Judith Kakon, Roy Köhnke, Mythre van der Mark, Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence, Josse Pyl, Isa Schieche & Helen Weber, Jura Shust and Līga Spunde.
Text by @publiekpark images thanks to @larsduchateau and @michieldecleene
This Sunday, 28.09, the third edition of Publiek Park will come to a festive close with a free nocturne at Plantentuin Meise. The finissage includes a guided tour with the curators and writer Lana Jones and an experimental film programme. The tour with Lana Jones offers insights into the transhistorical layers of the botanical garden and follows the path of the new Walking Guide, to which she contributed (con)texts.
While in the previous two Walking Guide publications, the historic narrative was based on locations and monuments, the narrative in this year’s publication is built on a selection of objects that are not bound to one location: ticket, sansevieria, Wardian case, banana tree, figurative sculptures, Victoria (Balat) greenhouse, slice of sequoia, and Brussels-North. These objects, encountered along the route, were researched by Lana Jones and described as anchoring points around which stories unfold – stories that are layered, mobile, and sometimes contradictory.
During the event, the publication will be available for purchase.
Timetable:
17:00 - Guided tour
📍Entrance Plantentuin Meise
19:00 - food and drinks
20:00 - Film Programme
📍Victoriakas (Balatkas)
Free entrance
NL
Deze zondag (28.09) wordt de derde editie van Publiek Park feestelijk afgesloten met een gratis nocturne in Plantentuin Meise. De finissage omvat een rondleiding met de curatoren en schrijfster Lana Jones, gevolgd door een experimenteel filmprogramma. De rondleiding met Lana Jones biedt inzicht in de transhistorische lagen van de plantentuin en volgt het pad van de nieuwe Walking Guide, waaraan ze contextuele teksten heeft bijgedragen.
Waar de vorige twee Wandelgidsen de historische lijn uitstippelden langs plaatsen of monumenten, is de opbouw van deze editie gebaseerd op voorwerpen die niet aan één locatie gebonden zijn: een toegangsticket, een sansevieria, een Wardiaanse kist, een bananenboom, figuratieve sculpturen, de Victoria (Balat)serre, een plak sequoia hout, en Brussel-Noord. Deze objecten, die langs de route opduiken, werden onderzocht door Lana Jones en beschreven als oriëntatiepunten waar verhalen zich rond ontvouwen – gelaagd, beweeglijk en soms tegenstrijdig.
