In the garden

In 2026, the Maison des Arts is 200 years old! Three exhibitions evoking “the house”, its public and private spaces, as well as its garden accompany this anniversary. After the house, it is its garden that inspires the third exhibition. In 1825, the Eenens buy a cherry orchard of eighty-one ares. All around, there are only agricultural lands and orchards. The following year, they build their country house there. The city quickly joins them and the house, enlarged in stages, becomes the family's main residence for four generations. In 1863, their beautiful plot is cut in two when the municipality traces the rue royale Sainte-Marie and expropriates them. Before the war, family photos show the Terlinden grandchildren playing and posing wisely in the garden planted with boxwood, iris beds, espaliered lime trees… After buying the house in 1950, the municipality replaces the white rose beds with a pond. Since 1998, the frogs of Tom Frantzen make the water sing. The elegant winter garden that completed the facade and housed exotic plants has disappeared today. The family playground has become a public park and a terrace for the Estaminet. An unexpected bubble of calm, a green island in the urban density. “Au jardin” closes an anniversary year dedicated to the 200 years of the house. The exhibition is envisioned as a stroll punctuated by poetic stops associating our senses. We inhabit houses. And, certainly, somewhere, a garden, a large tree or an old swing inhabit our memories… The garden expresses our link to nature, how we stage it, how we look at it. It is inseparable from the hands of the gardener and the rose gatherer. The garden lives to the rhythm of the climate and its variations. It is by essence in metamorphosis. It is alive. In movement (would say Gilles Clément). It welcomes and unites the elements: water, sky, earth, sun and shadow, rain and wind. Let's go out. Here we are outside. Let's accompany the artists to the garden, put on our boots and plunge our fingers into the humus. Let's revive the smell of cut grass and follow with our eyes the fragile shadows under the trees. Avec Antoinette d’Ansembourg, Lise Duclaux, Silja Gudnyjardottir Hubert, Rachel Labastie, Caroline Le Méhauté, Solène Rigou, Charles-Henry Sommelette, Michiko Van De Velde & Jacques Vilet VERNISSAGE / PARTY : 18.09.2026 – 18:00 > 22:00 For this vernissage, come celebrate the 200 years of the house with your feet in the grass and with music! Go back in time and relive the period dances that the inhabitants of the house knew! From 7 pm to 7:30 pm, the Compagnie Saltoria will chain quadrilles, waltzes and dances of the roaring twenties. Then, it's your turn to dance in a guinguette and paper lantern atmosphere! Our super DJ’s Funky Bompa and XOGN will pick up the thread of time, from the roaring twenties to today. Without forgetting the delicious drinks of the Estaminet! Let’s dance! PRACTICAL INFO On the first floor of the house Discover the exhibition Inhabiting the house which takes place simultaneously on the ground floor. EXHIBITION PERIODS 19.09 > 15.11.2026 Closed on public holidays: 01 & 11.11 Exhibition texts available in FALC Copyright: Solène Rigou, Clément, colored pencil on wood, 2025. Courtesy of the artist & Meessen Gallery