With The Garden of Earthly Disquiet, Grace Tjang – starting from her own traumatic history – explores the story of all mothers who have been torn from their children in a heartbreaking way. It is an indictment of the colonial history that lies at the root of her personal trauma.

In search of primal emotions such as pain and sorrow, but also consolation and the ultimate joy of togetherness, Grace Tjang delves into so-called “forgotten memories,” where forgetting becomes a deliberate process because reality is too unbearable to face.

Grace Tjang

Artist, choreographer, and performer Grace Ellen Barkey was born in Surabaya (Indonesia). She lives and works in Brussels and is a co-founder of the artists’ collective Needcompany (1986). Her work sits at the intersection of theatre, dance, performance, and visual art. Her most recent installations reflect stillness and inner contemplation. The viewer’s senses are not overwhelmed by absurd, grotesque, or surreal images whose cohesion cannot be grasped purely rationally. The starting point of her installations is her personal relationship with nature. In 2021, she decolonised her name and adopted her grandmother’s name, Grace Tjang, allowing another history to resonate in her artistic identity.

Aya Suzuki

Aya Suzuki is a Japanese percussionist living in both Brussels and Japan. Through her studies in Japan and Ghent, she found her way into the contemporary music scene. Suzuki has performed with Belgian ensembles such as Ictus and SPECTRA. Her performances are highly physical, expressing the idea that music directs bodily movement. Her journey with Needcompany began with the song cycle Songs of Disconnection (2021–2023) by Maarten Seghers. For The Garden of Restlessness, she explores traditional Indonesian gamelan music as the foundation for her composition. Suzuki attempts to recreate the microtonal qualities typical of gamelan by crafting her own instruments and experimenting with classical percussion tools.

Sung Im Her

Sung Im Her (Seoul, South Korea, 1976) earned a master’s degree in contemporary dance from Hansung University in 2003. She moved to Belgium in 2004 to study at P.A.R.T.S.. She has worked with companies such as Troubleyn, Les ballets C de la B, and Needcompany, and has created her own work since 2012. Notable pieces include the award-winning NUTCRUSHER (2019) and collaborations with institutions such as the V&A Museum in London. Her work blends dance, music, and social issues, and has been shown globally, including at the Edinburgh Festival and across the UK. Since 2023, she has been an associated artist at the SPAF Festival.

Martha Gardner

Martha Gardner (Sussex, UK, 2000) is an interdisciplinary performer based in Brussels. After studying contemporary dance at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp, she has performed with Needcompany, Maison the Faux, Cooperativa Maura Morales, Sung-Im Her, Pieter Desmet, :mentalKLINIK, Frederik Heyman, Tim Bogaerts and more. Using the body as the primary medium, she is interested in fusing disciplines and genres to create things beyond boundaries and definition. She is also currently drumming for the new album release tour of musician JS Donny. 

Maarten Seghers

Maarten Seghers is a performer, theatre-maker, and composer. In his performance work (e.g. Concert of a Band Facing the Wrong Way), he confronts himself with autonomous sound, movement, and visual artists. The drama in his performances does not lie in psychological or emotional conflict between characters, but in the physical confrontation between the bodies of his performers and the musical structure.