A large part of the LUGA exhibition will be taking place in the valleys surrounding the city centre, like a belt of fragmented landscapes, natural habitats and historic landmarks that have been partially transformed for new uses in recent decades. Against this backdrop, the exhibition’s circular trail features a number of themes and sequences that will form the contextual basis for the concept.

Concept: A green urban trail as a new narrative
Markus Ambach’s artistic trail is based on a concept of six urban sequences, which form the thematic grid and draw on the fragments of landscape found with their original themes. They are linked by the green ribbon that emerges from the two rivers and the municipal park, with both cultivated and wild vegetation forming the backbone and main theme of the exhibition. Discovering the beauty of the invisible elements of this landscape will enhance the exhibition even more than the works of art themselves. They will activate their contexts to become a new perspective, a new narrative of this hidden yet exposed landscape. The integration of local players and their projects, as well as the various routes in the region such as the archaeological trails, the Pierre Ernest de Mansfeld trail, the Vauban trail and the cultural itineraries, will contribute to this enrichment of local knowledge.

The themes of the artistic trail are interlinked by the green thread of the river, with natural units, horticultural sequences, hidden gardens and restored spaces becoming one route in the project. Natural habitats consisting of small biotopes will be explored through the eyes of artists; small uncultivated patches providing space for project vegetation will take on a sculptural appearance; gardens and ecological niches will offer areas for artistic healing processes; and, finally, parks revealing the historical interaction between man and nature will be refreshed with new commitments through innovative landscape architecture.

By inventing a new narrative, displayed and alive in the exhibition’s circular trail, with no real start or end, artists will address our relationship with nature from the earliest times to the present day, in constant interaction with the natural environment, inhabitants and visitors to this natural urban landscape. Wild, horticultural, cultural, social, psychic, historical or futuristic gardens will show the extent to which our entire lives are deeply involved, interwoven and interdependent with what is now called “nature”, making human beings once again an integral part of it.