Gay By Nature (with Isa Schieche)

Film installation, 2K Video, 21’30“, objects made out of spruce, nutwood, ash, hazelnut, poplar and linen

At the Friendship Temple, a pavilion tucked away in the greenery of the botanic garden, Isa Schieche and Helen Weber present a film installation, Gay by Nature, parts of which were filmed in Raketenstation Hombroich, Vienna, Plantentuin Meise and Jardin Botanique de Bruxelles.

Set in the near future, the film imagines a world where the rise of right-wing and nationalist forces has led to a fascist regime. Echoing the Nazi regime a century earlier, this new authority conducts secret experiments on humans. In an attempt to create a superhuman, they combine the DNA of big cats and humans. The experiments, however, result in an unexpected failure for the fascist elite – all test subjects turn out to be large, peace-loving lesbians. While the programme is halted on moral grounds, citing the need to protect traditional family values, the remaining subjects are confined to a free-roaming enclosure, living their lives for the amusement of visitors.

Incorporating musical elements, Gay by Nature is a contemporary interpretation of the Heimatfilm – a genre of German-language cinema popular from the late 1940s to the 1960s, known for its sentimental stories set in idyllic rural landscapes, and its focus on themes such as home, tradition, and moral values.

For some, the Friendship Temple may recall the salon of the same name hosted by Natalie Clifford Barney in early twentieth-century Paris, frequented by leading figures of the Parisian modernist literary scene. Echoing the storyline of Schieche and Weber’s film, Barney, who often published under the nickname l’Amazone, lived openly as a lesbian and wrote extensively about feminism and pacifism. Beyond this historical parallel, the film’s dystopian narrative also resonates with episodes from Belgium’s colonial past. The presence of violent control of “the other” showed itself as recently as Expo ’58 taking place in the same year as the inauguration of Plantentuin Meise (Anna Laganovska)

Filmstills