All is but temporary

Show & Culture

The exhibition ALL IS BUT TEMPORARY, conceived for Clervaux – Cité de l'image, brings together photographic series by Kay Walkowiak. These series trace a poetic and philosophical meditation on the ephemeral, transformation, and the human desire for permanence. In various locations—from Japan to India and across Europe—Walkowiak explores in her work how culture, form, and matter are linked to the irreversibility of time. Each series becomes a fragment of a broader reflection on the ephemeral and reveals the beauty and melancholy inherent in the temporal flow of life. In the market square, Walkowiak explores the Japanese concept of "mono no aware"—the subtle awareness of the fleeting nature of all things—in Ephemera (2008), shot in Tokyo. In silent, poetic arrangements—a bandaged branch, a weighted butterfly, withered flowers—beauty and loss converge. Like visual haikus, the images invite attentive contemplation and convey a serene acceptance of the passage of time. In the arcades leading to the church, In Worship (2013) looks towards India and explores the desire to escape temporality. Brightly colored objects, adorned with garlands, oscillate between ritual and abstraction. But it is precisely their ephemeral nature that undermines the claim to eternity and points to a universal aspiration: to grasp meaning in the flow of time. The Mechanics of Form (2012), installed opposite the church, is inspired by the Gujarat Kite Festival (India). The soaring kites become symbols of human aspirations—floating between renewal and transience. In minimalist compositions, Walkowiak transforms this cultural event into a poetic metaphor for the human condition. With Display (2024) in the arcades of Grand-Rue, the artist focuses on the vestiges of the consumer era. An abandoned advertising installation, adorned with contemplative inscriptions, becomes a symbol of the fading of past promises of progress and a silent memento mori of modernity. At the Brahaus Garden, the Misfits series (2024) challenges the idea of museum preservation. Rearranged objects appear in fragile and unstable constellations, revealing the illusion of permanence. The museum itself becomes the emblem of a fragile order. Encounters (2023), in the castle garden, places art and nature in direct dialogue. Sculptural forms encounter wild monkeys, whose reactions blur the line between cultural construct and natural existence. Art here appears as part of a larger, shared temporal fabric. Finally, at Clervaux station, A Different Order (2018) explores the city of Chandigarh (India). Geometric structures are superimposed on traces of decay, making visible the tension between utopian order and living change. Disintegration thus becomes an aesthetic message in itself. Together, these works constitute a meditation on the passage of time—beyond cultures, materials, and ideologies. The title All is but Temporary is not a lament, but an affirmation that all beauty is born of the ephemeral and all forms of transformation. In this context, photography itself becomes a metaphor and a vehicle for the ephemeral. Each image captures a fleeting moment, immortalizing what will never return, while simultaneously asserting that nothing is truly immutable. It is in this paradox that the silent power of Walkowiak's art resides: making visible the grace of the ephemeral and reminding us that every act of seeing is, ultimately, an encounter with time itself.