
15.10.26 – 31.10.26, THE CELLAR (and our faces, my heart, brief as photos), Duccio Viani, with Alex Celis
In The Cellar (and our faces, my heart, brief as photos), Duccio Viani transforms Het Paviljoen into a domestic cellar brought to the surface: a space of accumulation filled with photographs, letters, postcards and other traces of individual and family histories.
Starting from his own family archive, Viani expanded his research into family cellars and their contents, exploring what he describes as an ecology of the self. As the apparent order of the archive begins to collapse, photographs and documents are exposed to humidity, decay and transformation. What was preserved as evidence of individual lives gradually loses its structure and becomes matter.
The installation is extended by Compost, a collaborative sound piece by Alex Celis and Duccio Viani. Moving between descent and ascent, water and vegetation, decomposition and renewal, the work imagines the cellar as part of a larger cycle in which memories, images, bodies and environments continually change form.
Through The Cellar and Compost, Viani and Celis immerse us in this cycle of accumulation, decay and transformation, asking what remains of the things we preserve—and what might emerge when we allow them to decay.
Duccio Viani
Duccio Viani is a visual artist based between Brussels and Florence. With a background in academia, linguistics and literature, his practice spans painting, mixed media and photography. Working primarily with photographs and paper, he explores the passage of time, material decay and the impermanence of images and objects. Rather than treating photography as a means of preservation, Viani approaches photographic prints as material to be manipulated, degraded, transformed and recycled.
Alex Celis
Alex Celis is a Chilean researcher, curator and interdisciplinary creator with a background in philosophy. Working across writing, documentary film, sound and visual media, he combines theoretical inquiry with artistic experimentation. His current research centres on curating violence and curating decay, exploring how encounters with images and materials can disrupt perception and provoke critical reflection.
Curated by Houda Ben Azzouz
Houda Ben Azzouz is a Brussels-based artist and researcher working across visual and curatorial practices. With a background in journalism, information design, cultural and curatorial studies, her work examines how visual, symbolic, and spatial forms shape narratives and meaning. Working across visual, spatial, and written forms, she explores the often-unspoken frameworks that influence how we see, understand, and relate to the world around us, with particular attention to what becomes visible, accessible, and valued within cultural contexts.
Louis Pasteurlaan 2
9000 Gent
finissage 31.10.26, 16:00–19:00











