Hortus Conclusus

Hortus conclusus is a Latin term, meaning literally "enclosed garden".
The outside wall serves as a frame, as a scene for the inside lying garden. The visitor enters a place, looking for sanctuary from the frenzy and tumults that surrounds him. It is a place in which one can stay, pause and observe.

Elisabeth Wörndl
Series of 36 colour prints, each 52 x 48 cm, mounted, 2012

The photo artist Elisabeth Wörndl presents in the Cloister of Neumünster Abbey, witch is located in the Grund district of Luxemburg City, the result of her residency of May 2011. In her previous bodies of work, Elisabeth deals with the relation of city, landscape and the human body, and further more themes like travelling and the search for identity. For the Luxemburg photographic work she interviewed gardeners and other people responsible for the semi – public parks and gardens and the Kirchberg arboretum. Elisabeth Wörndl thinks that cultural and political developments, as well as emotional distress situations can be reflected in botanical or private gardens.

For this exhibition the artist puts together bodies of work depicting the monastery gardens (16/17.century.) next to the Neumünster Abbey, and contemporary garden situations and parks on the Kirchberg plateau. A new personal perception is compiled by reflexion, duplication, alienation or strong enlargement of details, the border between nature and artificiality, the real and fictive, time and space is dissolved.