How do we imagine living environments in a world facing planetary shifts and ecological challenges? Magical Realism: Imagining Natural Dis/order brings together over thirty artists at WIELS and beyond, offering new ideas and perspectives on the relationship with our planet. The exhibition is an invitation to move away from systems driven by endless growth and resource extraction, encouraging a deeper connection with the many entanglements that shape our biosphere.

Through a large-scale exhibition—including a section organised at argos—a publication and a live program including workshops, talks, screenings, walks and performances, Magical Realism reflects an ecology that addresses both the aesthetic implications of our relationship with natural worlds at a tipping point, as well as the social, economic and scientific implications of exploring and shifting our conceptions of the planet. 

The artists navigate different, complementary and contradictory ways of relating to ecosystems and myths of the “natural” environment, seeking refuge in dreams and in the raw matter and bare life of the world. At the confluence of analytic and speculative tools, Magical Realism gestures towards restoring connections in a biosphere exhausted by exploitation, dispossession and debt.

argos presents work by: Saodat Ismailova, Joan Jonas, Pauline Julier

WIELS presents work by: Bianca Baldi, Minia Biabiany, Gaëlle Choisne, Ade Darmawan, Edith Dekyndt, Suzanne Husky, Suzanne Jackson, Ann Veronica Janssens, Barbara & Michael Leisgen, Anne Marie Maes, Jumana Manna, Marisa Merz, Jota Mombaça, Nour Mobarak, mountaincutters, Otobong Nkanga, Kicsy Abreu Stable, Precious Okoyomon, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Annie Ratti, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Maarten Vanden Eynde & Musasa, Cecilia Vicuña, and Adrián Villar Rojas.

Curators: Sofia Dati, Helena Kritis, Dirk Snauwaert

The exhibition was made possible thanks to the generous support of the WIELS Patrons and the Foundation Willame

The project has benefited from the special support of Acción Cultural Española (AC/E); the French Embassy in Belgium and the Institut français — as part of EXTRA, a program that supports French contemporary creation in Belgium; Fonds de dotation de la famille Moulin; Pro Helvatia – Swiss Arts Council; Xavier Hufkens, Brussels; Mendes Wood DM, Paris and São Paolo, TheMerode.

Specific projects within Magical Realism were realised in collaboration with Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Publiek Park, TBA21, Serpentine Ecology, TONO festival, L’Internationale Online