Night in the Garden of Love

Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef

VR Choreography and Live Performance collaboration with Shezad Dawood
WIELS, Brussels
18 May – 13 August 2023

For this new body of work, British artist Shezad Dawood finds inspiration in the creative output of African American musician, composer and polymath, Yusef Lateef. Enter Dawood’s universe through an enchanting VR experience, a suite of new painted textiles, and a garden of digital plants growing in response to Lateef’s music. You can also encounter a live mutant dancing through the exhibition on most Sundays, wearing a specially created costume sculpture, as Dawood’s work breaks down the boundaries between the analogue and the digital, between fiction, virtual reality and real life.
Written and directed by: Shezad Dawood
Produced by: Miranda Sharp
Coders & 3D design: Monochrome
Mutant dancer: Wan-Lun Yu
Tracks: Daydream, Phase Transition, Instrumental Ritornello #1, Monadic Adventure, Instrumental Gospel, Saturday Morning, all tracks composed by Yusef Lateef for YAL Records and published by Spirit One Music Crescendo obo Alnur Music (BMI)
Musical trio: Mia Theodoratus (harp), Adam Rudolph (slit drum), Ralph Miles Jones (bamboo flute)
Voices: Ilham Tamet (Arabic & French), Huan Mus (Portuguese),
 Batya Sobel, Gwen Laster and Ralph Miles Jones (English)
Film footage: Robbrecht Desmet, Ruben Desiere, Lennert De Taeye

Curated by: Zoë Gray & Helena Kritis
Produced by UBIK Productions. Co-commissioned by WIELS, Brussels and Aga Khan Museum, Toronto.
Night in the Garden of Love (VR), 2023. VR environment, duration variable. Produced by and courtesy of UBIK Productions. Co-commissioned by WIELS, Brussels and Aga Khan Museum, Toronto.
Night in the Garden of Love (VR), 2023. VR environment, duration variable. Produced by and courtesy of UBIK Productions. Co-commissioned by WIELS, Brussels and Aga Khan Museum, Toronto.
Exhibition Opening view, Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef, WIELS, Brussels, 2023. Photography © We Document Art.
Exhibition Opening view, Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef, WIELS, Brussels, 2023. Photography © We Document Art.
Exhibition Opening view, Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef, WIELS, Brussels, 2023. Photography © We Document Art.
Exhibition Opening view, Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef, WIELS, Brussels, 2023. Photography © We Document Art.
Exhibition Opening view, Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef, WIELS, Brussels, 2023. Photography © We Document Art.
Exhibition Opening view, Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef, WIELS, Brussels, 2023. Photography © We Document Art.
Exhibition Opening view, Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef, WIELS, Brussels, 2023. Photography © We Document Art.
Previous

900 SOMETHING DAYS SPENT IN THE XXth CENTURY
Next

To be a plant in the botanical garden.