Alice Pallot / Suillus, Looking at the sun with closed eyelids

On the announcement of the deconfinement, Alice Pallot and her friends dreamt of a space of freedom, of an exploration. She spontaneously did a Google search for «sahara belgium», discovering the unexpected existence of the Lommelse Sahara, in the province of Limburg. Impromptu, they thus left in quest of a wild land.

In the twentieth century, the emissions from the former zinc factory made vegetation completely disappear across several hundred hectares in Lommel, giving way to an arid landscape covered by white sand. In order to avoid the extension of the sandy plains, a new forest of conifers was planted, creating a unique nature reserve. The pines were able to survive through symbiotic coexistence with a fungi, the Sullius Bovinus. Naturally resistant to zinc, it has protected the trees and other reemerging vegetation from ecotoxicity.

Published by Page Works
French and English

22 x 31 cm
96 pages
2022