Future Garden is not a static artistic structure but a hub for research into the fusion of humans, nature, art, social economy and technology. Cross-disciplinary partners, including Hasselt University, will work on projects that contribute to the transition to a balance between culture and nature.
“What we do here every day would not be possible in a city like New York,” he says. “There is not enough space there. In Genk, we can champion a concept where art is the driving force and not money.”
Inside Future Garden, there is also room for a habitat for two tapirs, an endangered mammal that, according to Vanmechelen, symbolises “diversity, fertility and adaptation”. “It is an animal described by people in South America as a failure of nature,” he says. “It has the head of an elephant, the body of a pig and the legs of a rhinoceros. So a real, living mix.”
