During his residency at Syb, Laurent-David Garnier researched Linum usitatissimum, an ancient crop that was traditionally grown in the North of the Netherlands for its seeds and fibres. He investigated the material of which it (and all biological matter) largely consists: cellulose. In a series of works produced during his residency at Kunsthuis Syb, the artist shows new forms of use of Linum usitatissimum in photonic structures, showing how cellulose can be transparent from one angle and reflect all the colours of the rainbow from another. Garnier’s works reject the idea of narrow imagery. All the more, it embodies a call to come together, marking the opening of a field of reflection beyond the borders of the ego, opening up the way to renewed landscapes where another relationship to humanity and the environment in which it is located is possible.

Laurent-David Garnier was trained as a perfumer, worked as a senior perfumer in the perfume industry and then took a master’s degree in visual arts at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. Since then, as a perfumer and as an artist, he has focused on the experience of the senses in relation to the visual arts, and especially on the smell. His work has been exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Kunsthalle Bremerhaven (DE), Singapore Peninsular (SG), de Appel, Amsterdam and Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel (CH).