Night in the Garden of Love
Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef
WIELS, Brussels
18 May - 13 August 2023
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Installation view, Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef, WIELS, Brussels. Photography © We Document Art.

Installation view, Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef, WIELS, Brussels. Photography © We Document Art.

Installation view, Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef, WIELS, Brussels. Photography © We Document Art.
Night in the Garden of Love is an exhibition developed by Shezad Dawood and inspired by the creative output of African-American musician, composer, allamah/polymath Yusef Lateef. Titled after Lateef’s 1988 novella, the exhibition features music and a selection of drawings by Lateef together with five new, interconnected works by Dawood: a VR experience, a suite of painted textiles, a garden of algorithmic plants growing digitally in response to a series of live improvisational music sessions, costume-sculptures and live choreography.
Shezad Dawood (b.1974) is a British artist known for his exploration of non-Western traditions that inform and intersect with established canons, whether in the field of architecture or, as in this case, music. His playful, research-driven work encompasses many forms and media, breaking down the boundaries between the analogue and digital. Since 2013, he has explored the conceptual possibilities of VR as an integral part of his practice. This is his largest presentation of new work since 2019 and his first solo exhibition in Belgium. It is commissioned by WIELS together with the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto.
Yusef Lateef (1920-2013) pioneered the integration of world instruments to expand the boundaries of jazz traditions. Over time, he developed a methodology he called Autophysiopsychic music. “It is about heightened consciousness and aims to activate the physical, mental and spiritual senses simultaneously,” states Dawood. Aware of Lateef’s music since his own youth, Dawood became fascinated with Lateef’s ideas after seeing his drawings, which function as abstract musical notation, and present organic, plant-like forms.
Dawood sees this exhibition as a dialogue between his practice and Lateef’s, like the call-and- response exchanges in musical improvisation. Dawood considers Lateef’s Night in the Garden of Love novella to be a forerunner of much recent cli-fi: sci-fi exploring climate issues. “There are all sorts of portals within Lateef’s novella, which moves from a dystopian future Detroit, into radical ideas of ecology and recycling,” states Dawood.
"It is meant to be an utmost metaphysical space, but I read Lateef's garden as a virtual space."
Dawood is interested in technology for its transformative potential to help us imagine new forms of togetherness.
Both Dawood and Lateef delve into the garden as an ancient and cross-cultural symbol. Dawood investigates the garden’s potential as a site of creation and optimism in the face of the climate crisis. He aims to write a poetics of environmentalism: seeing how art can awaken a new spiritual epiphany that can lead to change.
Curated by Zoë Gray & Helena Kritis.
Produced by UBIK Productions. Co-commissioned by WIELS, Brussels and Aga Khan Museum in Toronto.

Lion's Foot Dancer, 2023. Acrylic on vintage textile, 198 x 138 cm. Courtesy of the artist and The Ekard Collection.

Night in the Garden of Love (VR), 2023. VR environment, duration variable. Produced by and courtesy of UBIK Production. Co-commissioned by WIELS, Brussels and Aga Khan Museum, Toronto.