Courage fuyons (Be Brave and Run) is a two-part project exploring the following questions: What is our relationship to our own reality? How far are we willing to go to escape it?
The experiment unfolded at Zsenne Art Lab in Brussels. I designed an immersive environment drawing from three sources of inspiration: after-parties, my father’s suicide, and Disney’s Alice in Wonderland—a film that defined my childhood. A surreal ode to altered states, Alice embodies the desire to flee reality.
The next morning, the partygoers were invited to keep the party alive—for as long as their bodies could hold out.
The gallery was divided into four distinct spaces:
AA lady greeted guests at the entrance, handing each an entry ticket stamped with Drink Me—the same words inscribed on the bottle that causes Alice to grow and shrink, granting her access to the tiny doors, much like the undersized doorways the partygoers had to navigate between spaces. On the reverse side of the ticket was a replica of the metro ticket I kept from the day my father died: an invitation to a journey beyond death, to glimpse what lies on the other side.
The second space was the epicenter of the action: a DJ spun tracks, people danced and drank, and a disco ball—its surface etched with a face—hung as the sole light source. At once a glittering emblem of celebration, it also cast a shadow, serving as a haunting reference to my father’s death by hanging.
The third space housed the bar, where guests could purchase a drink—or redeem their Drink Me ticket
The fourth space was the chill room. Small cardboard enclaves offered hiding spots where people could retreat, and in the enveloping darkness, private moments of play unfolded unseen. A TV played Alice in Wonderland on loop, while the blurry reflective walls mirrored the visitors back to themselves—hinting that there was no more space to explore, nothing left to discover but perhaps the self.
The second part aimed to create distance from the experience by revealing what had unfolded. Photographs and printed conversations lined the walls, while an ambient soundtrack—recorded during the event—played in the background.
