Animals of the Mind

Artists: Atelier Van Lieshout, Roland Boden, Anne-Charlotte Finel, Henrik Håkansson, Cengiz Hartlap & Sara Lefebvre, Anna Hulačová, Laurent Le Deunff, Rémy Markowitsch, Mary-Audrey Ramirez, Studio Ossidiana, Su-Mei Tse, Ulrich Vogl

Curated by Boris Kremer.

“Whatever the changes in productive means and social organisation, men depended upon animals for food, work, transport, clothing. Yet to suppose that animals first entered the human imagination as meat or leather or horn is to project a nineteenth-century attitude backwards across the millenia. Animals first entered the imagination as messengers and promises.”—John Berger, “Why Look at Animals?” (1977)

Animals of the Mind is a contemporary art trail conceived as part of Luxembourg Urban Garden (LUGA), a city-wide open-air exhibition of urban gardens, landscape projects, and art installations in Luxembourg. Inspired by the LUGA theme, “Making the invisible visible,” it takes the form of twelve site-specific sculptures, installations, video works, performances, and interventions revolving around our complex relationships with animals.

In an age of ecological collapse, how can we not see the proliferation of animal motifs in everyday life as a reflection of our growing alienation from nature? For Animals of the Mind, the invited artists explore this paradox, questioning how animals persist in our collective psyche even as real-world biodiversity faces existential threats.

In a clearing, Ulrich Vogl’s sealed hunting lodge plays animal-themed piano pieces to an elusive presence, while Atelier Van Lieshout’s monumental chicken Le Cri confronts the invisibility of factory animals in our daily lives. Similarly, Anna Hulačová’s installation Harvest reflects on industrial agriculture and the way it both nourishes and threatens rural birds.

Juliens Maus by Rémy Markowitsch enacts a Flaubertian tale of mass killing and redemption in sculpture and film, while Su-Mei Tse’s multipart installation Gregor summons a Kafkaesque scenario to affirm the power of emancipation. On a lighter note, Laurent Le Deunff’s animal Totems, which were carved on site from local oak, add a humorous twist to Luxembourgish folklore. Local history is also explored in Tout couche sous le kepenek, a participative work by Cengiz Hartlap & Sara Lefebvre in the shape of felted wool coats that can be worn to walk along the trail and listen to cross-cultural pastoral histories.

Nestled in the shadow of the 14th-century Quirinus Chapel, Anne-Charlotte Finel’s double projection Sphinx captures a glowing moth circling night phlox, its slow, flickering presence dissolving the line between seen and sensed. Tucked in the recesses of the city’s historic casemates, Mary-Audrey Ramirez’s AI-generated critters Blobby and Boo invite us to reconsider our definition of sentience.

Overlooking the 19th-century park, Studio Ossidiana’s shimmering Pigeon Tower acts as both a modern functional shelter and a poetic landmark, resonating with Henrik Håkansson’s Painting for Insects #002, which transforms minimalist painting into a living habitat for pollinators. Finally, Roland Boden’s Pavilion of Celestial Promise reconstructs a looted Chinese shrine to a presumably extinct sky-whale, complete with diorama, fossil relic, and a ritual performance to summon it back.

Set against the dramatic landscape of Luxembourg’s UNESCO-listed fortress, Animals of the Mind takes visitors on a vivid, multisensory tour rooted in myth, memory, ecology, and imagination. Reaching out to a wide audience, it reveals the incredible wealth of the city’s natural and cultural heritage, while encouraging us to reflect on our understanding of non-human life.