ART

Olivier Schneider works with nature and the living world. He works with plant life as material, from the tea tree rooted in the garden to the leaf once picked and transformed. Through gesture and subtle interventions, he sculpts the sensory experience that will arise through contact with this medium, bringing forth singular and sensitive inner worlds.

Garden

The garden lies nestled within a fold of the Golden Triangle, along the blurred and porous border between Thailand and Shan State, a territory on the margins of Myanmar. Embedded within the forest, this former tea garden brings together one hundred and forty majestic tea trees, planted more than a century ago and later abandoned. It now forms the primary territory of Olivier Schneider’s creative practice: an open-air studio, a space for reflection and experimentation, and a living work in a permanent state of transformation.

Far from being limited to producing the leaves used in his creations, the garden is a project in its own right. It questions the relationships between human beings, plant life and nature, as well as the subtle boundaries between preserving and sacralising the natural world. Both the garden’s gradual evolution and the tensions it brings to light within the cultural environment in which it is situated, a region where uncontrolled deforestation has reached a critical point, make it one of Olivier Schneider’s principal works today.

Leaves

Olivier Schneider works with the tea leaf as an artistic medium. Through a succession of carefully controlled gestures, he sculpts its material. This intervention does not merely alter the leaf’s visible appearance: it also operates on a microscopic scale, transforming and reorganising the compounds of which it is made.

Thus inscribed at the heart of the plant, this work-in-becoming reveals itself only through contact with the other, bringing forth a singular configuration of percepts, sensations and emotions.

Viewed from this perspective, the tea leaf becomes a particularly rich medium. It literally enters the body and acts profoundly upon sensory experience: taste; smell and its extraordinary ability to awaken buried memories; but also a wide range of tactile sensations and bodily perceptions. In working the leaf, the artist lays down materials in a state of becoming, textures, colours and atmospheres that immerse those who experience them in sensory worlds, at times unsettling. But the experience of the leaf also unfolds through time. By modulating its compounds, the artist determines how they will be released and perceived over time, thus writing a dramaturgy specific to each work. These sculpted leaves may constitute works in their own right. Olivier Schneider preserves them in metal tins as “canned percepts”, signed, numbered and offered for acquisition. Nestled within its metal shell, the percept remains latent until the container is opened, allowing it to enter into solution and be experienced.

Performance

Olivier Schneider also presents his creations in the form of performances. He then determines the conditions of their transmission: the way in which the work is given to the other, its temporality, its rhythm and the gestures that accompany it.

He thereby reinterprets the dramaturgy already inscribed within the leaf to compose an ephemeral, relational and situated experience.

Premiere of the documentary "The Tea Alchemist"

November 6, 2026 at 20h30 in Berlin

For several months, Luca Dylan Hartleib followed me in my studio, in the heart of the Golden Triangle mountains, to make a feature-length documentary about my artistic work. Through 95 minutes of majestic and sensitive images, in which everyday life, failures and moments of satisfaction intertwine, a personality emerges, along with a singular approach to creation and a particular relationship with the tea leaf.

Premiere in Berlin, November 6, 2026 at 8:30 pm
Kino Toni, as part of the Berlin Tea Festival

Watch the trailer / Buy Tickets Online

  • All
  • Garden
  • Leaves
  • Performance
The Tea Alchemist documentary on Olivier Schneider’s work, premiering in Berlin in 2026
World premiere on 6 November 2026 at Kino Toni in Berlin.
As part of the Berlin Tea Festival.
September 2026

The Tea Alchemist

Feature documentary
By Luca Dylan Hartleib — 2026
September 2026

Dead Leaf, an artistic exploration of the different stages in the life of a tea leaf
The idea I am currently working on is to try, in a sense, to fix the different stages in the life of a leaf, and then make them coexist. Like that final instant when, it is said, one sees one’s whole life flash before one’s eyes, a single breath would bring together the fragile timidity of the young emerging leaf, the stages of its maturation, its old age, and its gradual death.
Juillet 2026

LEAF | Dead Leaf

The life of a leaf in a single breath
Juillet 2026

Dead Leaf, a tea-leaf relic preserved inside a glass case
I am slowly working towards the form Dead Leaf will take. It will be a relic, intact and preserved within a glass case, whose world can only be experienced through scent: unique, alive, and imprisoned within this sarcophagus.
Juillet 2026

LEAF | Dead Leaf

A scent in a glass case
Juillet 2026

Reaching young leaves at the top of old tea trees in the garden, view 1
The young leaves, generally favoured for tea production, grow at the ends of the branches, that is, at the top of the tree. For decades, these tea trees were regularly pruned to around two or three metres, allowing the leaves to be reached by climbing into the tree. Since the garden was abandoned, some have grown to eight metres without developing a structure of large branches that would make it possible to climb that high. This naturally raises the question: how can the leaves be reached?

Once again, the local answer seems obvious: simply cut the trees back to human height and the branches will grow again. In the course of my research, I have observed many answers to this same question, varying according to region, ethnic group or period. These approaches, relevant insofar as they have proved successful, sometimes over very long periods of time, often come to be regarded as truths that one would no longer think to question.

But sometimes one has to know how to forget what one knows. Once again, I chose to favour the gaze of an artist, or that of a child, who would look at the tree and innocently wonder what might be imagined to reach its leaves without altering its current form. This led to a long process of research, still ongoing, into new ways of reaching those leaves…
June 2026

TREES | 02 | Reaching the leaves

Reaching the leaves…
June 2026

Reaching young leaves at the top of old tea trees in the garden, view 2
The young leaves, generally favoured for tea production, grow at the ends of the branches, that is, at the top of the tree. For decades, these tea trees were regularly pruned to around two or three metres, allowing the leaves to be reached by climbing into the tree. Since the garden was abandoned, some have grown to eight metres without developing a structure of large branches that would make it possible to climb that high. This naturally raises the question: how can the leaves be reached?

Once again, the local answer seems obvious: simply cut the trees back to human height and the branches will grow again. In the course of my research, I have observed many answers to this same question, varying according to region, ethnic group or period. These approaches, relevant insofar as they have proved successful, sometimes over very long periods of time, often come to be regarded as truths that one would no longer think to question.

But sometimes one has to know how to forget what one knows. Once again, I chose to favour the gaze of an artist, or that of a child, who would look at the tree and innocently wonder what might be imagined to reach its leaves without altering its current form. This led to a long process of research, still ongoing, into new ways of reaching those leaves…
June 2026

TREES | 02 | Reaching the leaves

Reaching the leaves…
June 2026

Reaching young leaves at the top of old tea trees in the garden, view 3
The young leaves, generally favoured for tea production, grow at the ends of the branches, that is, at the top of the tree. For decades, these tea trees were regularly pruned to around two or three metres, allowing the leaves to be reached by climbing into the tree. Since the garden was abandoned, some have grown to eight metres without developing a structure of large branches that would make it possible to climb that high. This naturally raises the question: how can the leaves be reached?

Once again, the local answer seems obvious: simply cut the trees back to human height and the branches will grow again. In the course of my research, I have observed many answers to this same question, varying according to region, ethnic group or period. These approaches, relevant insofar as they have proved successful, sometimes over very long periods of time, often come to be regarded as truths that one would no longer think to question.

But sometimes one has to know how to forget what one knows. Once again, I chose to favour the gaze of an artist, or that of a child, who would look at the tree and innocently wonder what might be imagined to reach its leaves without altering its current form. This led to a long process of research, still ongoing, into new ways of reaching those leaves…
June 2026

TREES | 02 | Reaching the leaves

Reaching the leaves…
June 2026

Reaching young leaves at the top of old tea trees in the garden, view 4
The young leaves, generally favoured for tea production, grow at the ends of the branches, that is, at the top of the tree. For decades, these tea trees were regularly pruned to around two or three metres, allowing the leaves to be reached by climbing into the tree. Since the garden was abandoned, some have grown to eight metres without developing a structure of large branches that would make it possible to climb that high. This naturally raises the question: how can the leaves be reached?

Once again, the local answer seems obvious: simply cut the trees back to human height and the branches will grow again. In the course of my research, I have observed many answers to this same question, varying according to region, ethnic group or period. These approaches, relevant insofar as they have proved successful, sometimes over very long periods of time, often come to be regarded as truths that one would no longer think to question.

But sometimes one has to know how to forget what one knows. Once again, I chose to favour the gaze of an artist, or that of a child, who would look at the tree and innocently wonder what might be imagined to reach its leaves without altering its current form. This led to a long process of research, still ongoing, into new ways of reaching those leaves…
June 2026

TREES | 02 | Reaching the leaves

Reaching the leaves…
June 2026

Working on Dead Leaf to sculpt the inner character of a tea leaf
Sculpting the character of the leaf from within, without affecting its visual appearance, is a particularly delicate challenge that I am currently exploring in the development of the work Dead Leaf.
May 2026

LEAF | Dead Leaf

Sculpting the character of the leaf from within
May 2026

Observing individual differences among the old tea trees in the garden
Learning to observe the subtle differences between each tree. The tea trees that make up the garden are the result of natural reproduction over more than a century. Significant differences can therefore be observed between individual trees, in their morphology, the appearance of their leaves and, of course, the compounds that shape their organoleptic character.
May 2026

TREES | 01 | Encounter

Learning to observe the subtle differences between each tree
May 2026

Off-site tea-leaf creation work in Chiang Rai, view 1
Creative time beyond the frame, in a village in Chiang Rai. By stepping beyond the frame of the garden, I introduce a new approach and new perspectives into the creation of leaf-works. The in situ work centred on the garden is an introspection through duration and depth: it allows me to fully explore the intrinsic character of the different trees that compose it, and to create works that draw on their singularity as much as they are inspired by it.

Leaving the garden is not merely a geographical displacement: it opens new perspectives and broadens the field of possibilities—to seek out a particular character, linked to a specific variety of tree or terroir, wherever it occurs in nature.

For ten days, I worked with a new material: a tiny abandoned wulong garden deep in the forest. Through their singular composition, these leaves make it possible to develop a range of aromas, tastes and sensations impossible to achieve with other trees.
April 2026

LEAF | Beyond the frame 02

Creative time in Chiang Rai, Thailand
April 2026

Off-site tea-leaf creation work in Chiang Rai, view 2
Creative time beyond the frame, in a village in Chiang Rai. By stepping beyond the frame of the garden, I introduce a new approach and new perspectives into the creation of leaf-works. The in situ work centred on the garden is an introspection through duration and depth: it allows me to fully explore the intrinsic character of the different trees that compose it, and to create works that draw on their singularity as much as they are inspired by it.

Leaving the garden is not merely a geographical displacement: it opens new perspectives and broadens the field of possibilities—to seek out a particular character, linked to a specific variety of tree or terroir, wherever it occurs in nature.

For ten days, I worked with a new material: a tiny abandoned wulong garden deep in the forest. Through their singular composition, these leaves make it possible to develop a range of aromas, tastes and sensations impossible to achieve with other trees.
April 2026

LEAF | Beyond the frame 02

Creative time in Chiang Rai, Thailand
April 2026

Encountering the old tea trees after two years of exploring the garden, view 1
After two years spent exploring and gradually making the garden my own, I am entering a new phase and beginning to meet the trees. The garden contains around one hundred and thirty tea trees, planted at different times, most of them more than a century ago. Each tree is unique, with its own history, its own character and something singular to express.
May 2026

TREES | 01 | Encounter

Going to meet the trees…
May 2026

Encountering the old tea trees after two years of exploring the garden, view 2
After two years spent exploring and gradually making the garden my own, I am entering a new phase and beginning to meet the trees. The garden contains around one hundred and thirty tea trees, planted at different times, most of them more than a century ago. Each tree is unique, with its own history, its own character and something singular to express.
May 2026

TREES | 01 | Encounter

Going to meet the trees…
May 2026

Encountering the old tea trees after two years of exploring the garden, view 3
After two years spent exploring and gradually making the garden my own, I am entering a new phase and beginning to meet the trees. The garden contains around one hundred and thirty tea trees, planted at different times, most of them more than a century ago. Each tree is unique, with its own history, its own character and something singular to express.
May 2026

TREES | 01 | Encounter

Going to meet the trees…
May 2026

Barbed-wire fence installed to protect the tea garden, view 1
After repeated intrusions into the garden and the uncontrolled cutting of a number of trees, we had to accept that the garden needed to be fenced with barbed wire. It is interesting to note that a passive position, simply allowing nature to grow as it wishes, already creates value and desire in itself: what no longer grows anywhere else, because it has been removed to establish intensive monocultures, still grows here. People then come with impunity to plunder the last remnants of biodiversity, contributing to their disappearance. Owning the land and respecting the nature found on it is therefore clearly not enough to preserve it. Active protection against external aggression becomes necessary.
January 2026

GARDEN | 03 | Enclosure

We had to accept that the garden needed to be fenced…
January 2026

Barbed-wire fence installed to protect the tea garden, view 2
After repeated intrusions into the garden and the uncontrolled cutting of a number of trees, we had to accept that the garden needed to be fenced with barbed wire. It is interesting to note that a passive position, simply allowing nature to grow as it wishes, already creates value and desire in itself: what no longer grows anywhere else, because it has been removed to establish intensive monocultures, still grows here. People then come with impunity to plunder the last remnants of biodiversity, contributing to their disappearance. Owning the land and respecting the nature found on it is therefore clearly not enough to preserve it. Active protection against external aggression becomes necessary.
January 2026

GARDEN | 03 | Enclosure

We had to accept that the garden needed to be fenced…
January 2026

Barbed-wire fence installed to protect the tea garden, view 3
After repeated intrusions into the garden and the uncontrolled cutting of a number of trees, we had to accept that the garden needed to be fenced with barbed wire. It is interesting to note that a passive position, simply allowing nature to grow as it wishes, already creates value and desire in itself: what no longer grows anywhere else, because it has been removed to establish intensive monocultures, still grows here. People then come with impunity to plunder the last remnants of biodiversity, contributing to their disappearance. Owning the land and respecting the nature found on it is therefore clearly not enough to preserve it. Active protection against external aggression becomes necessary.
January 2026

GARDEN | 03 | Enclosure

We had to accept that the garden needed to be fenced…
January 2026

Winter tea leaves, living material transformed by the season, view 1
The tea leaf is a living material whose composition and character change with the seasons. Summer leaves, heavy with water, are most often avoided, while spring leaves, rich and abundant, are generally favoured for tea production. Winter leaves, which emerge with difficulty during the first months of the year, are particularly rare, but possess a unique character and make it possible to express what other seasons cannot offer.
January 2026

LEAF | Winter leaves

January 2026

Winter tea leaves, living material transformed by the season, view 2
The tea leaf is a living material whose composition and character change with the seasons. Summer leaves, heavy with water, are most often avoided, while spring leaves, rich and abundant, are generally favoured for tea production. Winter leaves, which emerge with difficulty during the first months of the year, are particularly rare, but possess a unique character and make it possible to express what other seasons cannot offer.
January 2026

LEAF | Winter leaves

January 2026

Forest regrowth around a cabin at the top of the tea garden
We built a hut at the top of the garden, at the edge of the forest. From there, the view over the entire garden and the surrounding mountains is breathtaking, immediately giving the impression that this is precisely the kind of place where one should build a hut and admire the beauty of the landscape.

And yet we are working for the garden to become a forest again, and therefore towards the gradual but inevitable destruction of that view. Trees are growing all around it. They will slowly enter the field of vision, then occupy more and more of it. Little by little, the view will close and the hut will enter the forest.

This beauty, simple, yet imbued with selfishness and domination, will disappear to make way for another beauty, more modest but more profound: that of the forest returning.
December 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Watching the forest grow…
December 2025

View from the top of the garden toward the mountains of Shan State
At the top of the garden, looking towards Shan State…
December 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

At the top of the garden, looking towards Shan State…
December 2025

Trees, paths and vegetation forming the three components of the tea garden
The three components of the garden: trees, paths and nature.
October 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Trees, paths and nature
October 2025

Network of natural interdependence within the garden ecosystem
Nature is a complex network, made up of interdependencies that are often violent and opportunistic, yet ultimately reach a form of balance.
October 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Nature is a complex network
October 2025

Petr Sič visiting the tea garden and discovering the place through another perspective
It is always particularly exciting to welcome visitors into the garden and see it reflected in their eyes. (Petr Sič, Czech Republic)
October 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Seeing the garden through someone else’s eyes
October 2025

Small cabin built in the garden for shelter and to inhabit the place
Building huts here and there, to take shelter and inhabit the garden a little more.
October 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Huts here and there, to inhabit the garden
October 2025

Fragile balance between human intervention and nature in the tea garden
A garden is always on a knife-edge, balanced between human beings and nature. The most domineering approach is to clear the ground and cultivate only the desired variety or varieties. The most conservationist approach would be to fence off the garden and never enter it again. Between the two lies the garden.

But this balance is fragile and terribly fleeting. Maintaining it is a perpetual human task. Just a few months of abandonment during the rainy season are enough for the paths to disappear, and with them what makes it a garden.

This garden is several centuries old. It has had several lives, passed through several hands and been abandoned more than once. Today, I am its guardian. For a time, I establish a new balance within it, one that is itself destined to disappear one day.
October 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

A garden is always on a knife-edge, balancing between humans and nature.
October 2025

Listening to the Leaves performance in Kyiv based on Resin of Time
Performance Listening to the leaves in Kyiv.
Based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
October 2025, Kyiv, Ukraine

Listening to the leaves

October 2025, Kyiv, Ukraine

Listening to the Leaves performance in Paris based on Resin of Time, view 1
Performance Listening to the leaves in Paris, based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
Image: Copyright François Sam
September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the Leaves performance in Paris based on Resin of Time, view 2
Performance Listening to the leaves in Paris.
Based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the Leaves performance in Paris based on Resin of Time, view 3
Performance Listening to the leaves in Paris, based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
Image: Copyright François Sam
September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the Leaves performance in Paris based on Resin of Time, view 4
Performance Listening to the leaves in Paris, based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
Image: Copyright François Sam
September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the Leaves performance in Paris based on Resin of Time, view 5
Performance Listening to the leaves in Paris, based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
Image: Copyright François Sam
September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the Leaves performance in Paris based on Resin of Time, view 6
Performance Listening to the leaves in Paris.
Based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the Leaves performance in Paris based on Resin of Time, view 7
Performance Listening to the leaves in Paris, based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
Image: Copyright François Sam
September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the Leaves performance in Paris based on Resin of Time, view 8
Performance Listening to the leaves in Paris.
Based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the Leaves performance in Paris based on Resin of Time, view 9
Performance Listening to the leaves in Paris, based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
Image: Copyright François Sam
September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the Leaves performance in Paris based on Resin of Time, view 10
Performance Listening to the leaves in Paris.
Based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, Alma Tea Gallery, Paris, France

Listening to the Leaves performance in Berlin based on Resin of Time, view 1
Performance Listening to the leaves in Berlin.
Based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the Leaves performance in Berlin based on Resin of Time, view 2
Performance Listening to the leaves in Berlin, based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
Image: Copyright Luca Hartleib, from the documentary The Tea Alchemist
September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the Leaves performance in Berlin based on Resin of Time, view 3
Performance Listening to the leaves in Berlin.
Based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the Leaves performance in Berlin based on Resin of Time, view 4
Performance Listening to the leaves in Berlin, based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
Image: Copyright Luca Hartleib, from the documentary The Tea Alchemist
September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the Leaves performance in Berlin based on Resin of Time, view 5
Performance Listening to the leaves in Berlin.
Based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the Leaves performance in Berlin based on Resin of Time, view 6
Performance Listening to the leaves in Berlin, based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
Image: Copyright Luca Hartleib, from the documentary The Tea Alchemist
September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the Leaves performance in Berlin based on Resin of Time, view 7
Performance Listening to the leaves in Berlin.
Based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the Leaves performance in Berlin based on Resin of Time, view 8
Performance Listening to the leaves in Berlin, based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
Image: Copyright Luca Hartleib, from the documentary The Tea Alchemist
September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the Leaves performance in Berlin based on Resin of Time, view 9
Performance Listening to the leaves in Berlin, based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
Image: Copyright Luca Hartleib, from the documentary The Tea Alchemist
September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the Leaves performance in Berlin based on Resin of Time, view 10
Performance Listening to the leaves in Berlin, based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
Image: Copyright Luca Hartleib, from the documentary The Tea Alchemist
September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the Leaves performance in Berlin based on Resin of Time, view 11
Performance Listening to the leaves in Berlin, based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
Image: Copyright Luca Hartleib, from the documentary The Tea Alchemist
September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the Leaves performance in Berlin based on Resin of Time, view 12
Performance Listening to the leaves in Berlin, based on the leaf-work Resin of Time.
Image: Copyright Luca Hartleib, from the documentary The Tea Alchemist
September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Listening to the leaves

September 2025, C*SPACE, Berlin, Germany

Biodiversity gradually returning along the paths of the tea garden
The diversity of living forms is slowly beginning to reappear, here and there, along the paths.
September 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Along the paths…
September 2025

Pyrocoelia praetexta, an insect observed within the tea garden biodiversity
Biodiversity is not limited to plants. The garden teems with life, insects, reptiles, small mammals and birds, and is gradually becoming a refuge as the mountain is stripped of its forests…
September 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Pyrocoelia praetexta
September 2025

Old tea tree whose form records decades of pruning followed by years of abandonment
Reading the history of the garden through a tea tree: in this one, we can see the decades of pruning at human height, during which a massive trunk formed, followed by the years of abandonment, inscribed in long vertical shoots reaching towards the sky…
June 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

A tree that carries the history of the garden within it…
June 2025

Living tea-garden ecosystem undergoing constant transformation
The garden is a complex, living ecosystem in constant transformation. Deliberately interfering with this equation, whether to increase biodiversity or introduce new varieties, is no simple matter. It is a long and continuous process, moving forward step by step in order to gradually understand the balance one is part of and how each intervention may affect it.
June 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Interfering in a complex, living ecosystem in constant transformation
June 2025

Dalpada oculata observed among the wildlife of the tea garden
Biodiversity is not limited to plants. The garden teems with life, insects, reptiles, small mammals and birds, and is gradually becoming a refuge as the mountain is stripped of its forests…
June 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Dalpada oculata
June 2025

Artistic reflection on reforestation and restoration of the tea garden
Reforestation is a vast subject. There are, of course, established bodies of knowledge, theories and methods in this field that can determine the most relevant ways of recreating biodiversity or restoring a forest in a given context. Without questioning their relevance or effectiveness, I chose to consider being guided by an artistic approach a valid option. Bringing the forest back is one stage, but not an end in itself, any more than producing tea leaves was before. The garden is neither a means nor an end: it is an artwork.
June 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

An artistic approach as a response to reforestation
June 2025

Gradual restoration of balance and diversity in the abandoned tea garden
We arrived in an abandoned garden where vegetation had been reclaiming the space and it had become almost impossible to enter. Yet, appearances notwithstanding, such a return to nature is far from spontaneously producing the beginnings of a forest. Instead of the biodiversity one might expect, the space is quickly dominated by the most invasive and fast-growing species, in a kind of violent race for resources, space and light. We are therefore now entering a new phase: gradually reintroducing a degree of diversity and allowing it to establish itself within this hostile context.
June 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Gradually restoring balance and diversity
June 2025

Konjac growing gradually among the vegetation of the tea garden
A konjac gradually growing in the garden…
June 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

A konjac gradually growing in the garden…
June 2025

Off-site creation with wild tea leaves in Nanmei, Yunnan, view 1
Creative time beyond the frame, in the Nanmei valley, Yunnan. By stepping beyond the frame of the garden, I introduce a new approach and new perspectives into the creation of leaf-works. The in situ work centred on the garden is an introspection through duration and depth: it allows me to fully explore the intrinsic character of the different trees that compose it, and to create works that draw on their singularity as much as they are inspired by it.

Leaving the garden is not merely a geographical displacement: it opens new perspectives and broadens the field of possibilities—to seek out a particular character, linked to a specific variety of tree or terroir, wherever it occurs in nature.

For ten days, I worked with a new material: different varieties of wild tea trees growing in the forests of the Nanmei valley. Through their singular composition, these leaves make it possible to develop a range of aromas, tastes and sensations impossible to achieve with other trees.
May 2025

LEAF | Beyond the frame 01

Creative time in Nanmei, Yunnan
May 2025

Off-site creation with wild tea leaves in Nanmei, Yunnan, view 2
Creative time beyond the frame, in the Nanmei valley, Yunnan. By stepping beyond the frame of the garden, I introduce a new approach and new perspectives into the creation of leaf-works. The in situ work centred on the garden is an introspection through duration and depth: it allows me to fully explore the intrinsic character of the different trees that compose it, and to create works that draw on their singularity as much as they are inspired by it.

Leaving the garden is not merely a geographical displacement: it opens new perspectives and broadens the field of possibilities—to seek out a particular character, linked to a specific variety of tree or terroir, wherever it occurs in nature.

For ten days, I worked with a new material: different varieties of wild tea trees growing in the forests of the Nanmei valley. Through their singular composition, these leaves make it possible to develop a range of aromas, tastes and sensations impossible to achieve with other trees.
May 2025

LEAF | Beyond the frame 01

Creative time in Nanmei, Yunnan
May 2025

Off-site creation with wild tea leaves in Nanmei, Yunnan, view 3
Creative time beyond the frame, in the Nanmei valley, Yunnan. By stepping beyond the frame of the garden, I introduce a new approach and new perspectives into the creation of leaf-works. The in situ work centred on the garden is an introspection through duration and depth: it allows me to fully explore the intrinsic character of the different trees that compose it, and to create works that draw on their singularity as much as they are inspired by it.

Leaving the garden is not merely a geographical displacement: it opens new perspectives and broadens the field of possibilities—to seek out a particular character, linked to a specific variety of tree or terroir, wherever it occurs in nature.

For ten days, I worked with a new material: different varieties of wild tea trees growing in the forests of the Nanmei valley. Through their singular composition, these leaves make it possible to develop a range of aromas, tastes and sensations impossible to achieve with other trees.
May 2025

LEAF | Beyond the frame 01

Creative time in Nanmei, Yunnan
May 2025

Off-site creation with wild tea leaves in Nanmei, Yunnan, view 4
Creative time beyond the frame, in the Nanmei valley, Yunnan. By stepping beyond the frame of the garden, I introduce a new approach and new perspectives into the creation of leaf-works. The in situ work centred on the garden is an introspection through duration and depth: it allows me to fully explore the intrinsic character of the different trees that compose it, and to create works that draw on their singularity as much as they are inspired by it.

Leaving the garden is not merely a geographical displacement: it opens new perspectives and broadens the field of possibilities—to seek out a particular character, linked to a specific variety of tree or terroir, wherever it occurs in nature.

For ten days, I worked with a new material: different varieties of wild tea trees growing in the forests of the Nanmei valley. Through their singular composition, these leaves make it possible to develop a range of aromas, tastes and sensations impossible to achieve with other trees.
May 2025

LEAF | Beyond the frame 01

Creative time in Nanmei, Yunnan
May 2025

Cabin built in the garden for shelter and to inhabit the place more fully
Building huts here and there, to take shelter and inhabit the garden a little more.
May 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Huts here and there, to inhabit the garden
May 2025

Century-old tea tree rediscovered beneath dense vegetation in the garden
Old tea tree, newly rediscovered within the vegetation.
May 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Old tea tree, newly rediscovered within the vegetation
May 2025

Lush tea garden contrasting with monoculture plots in the surrounding landscape
The luxuriance of the garden stands in stark contrast to local practices and neighbouring plots, where the value of nature is often reduced to the soil it covers and the productive potential that soil will offer once the vegetation has been cleared to establish intensive monocultures.
January 2025

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

The garden’s luxuriance in contrast with local practices
January 2025

Progressive mapping of the garden as a way to understand and inhabit the space
Gradually mapping the garden was a crucial step in making it my own: establishing zones, absorbing and memorising the space, materialising it mentally, making it mine.
December 2024

GARDEN | 01 | Appropriation

Gradually mapping the garden was a crucial step in making it my own.
December 2024

Wood from a fallen tree partly intended for processing tea leaves
Part of the wood from this monumental tree was removed from the garden and will be used in transforming tea leaves. But most of it will remain, gradually returning to the soil what the tree had drawn from it…
November 2024

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

A small part of the wood will be used to transform the leaves
November 2024

Dead Leaf leaves after an initial transformation and first drying
Leaves collected from the uprooted tea tree a few days earlier, after a first transformation and an initial drying.
November 2024

LEAF | Dead Leaf

Leaves, dead?
November 2024

First transformation of still-living leaves for the creation of Dead Leaf
First transformation of the leaves in preparation for the creation of Dead Leaf. I have to act quickly, while they are still alive, without yet knowing where this will lead me or what this work will become…
November 2024

LEAF | Dead Leaf

Leaves, dead?
November 2024

Leaves from the damaged tea tree still sustained by the tree’s residual energy
Leaves collected from the uprooted tea tree a few days earlier, still kept alive by the tree’s residual energy…
November 2024

LEAF | Dead Leaf

Leaves, dead?
November 2024

Collecting still-living leaves after the fall of an old tea tree
A few days after the tree fell, the leaves are still alive, nourished by the last reserves contained in the torn branches. They must be collected before that energy is exhausted, in an attempt to preserve something of this transitional state.
November 2024

LEAF | Dead Leaf

Collecting the leaves, still filled with the tree’s energy
November 2024

Monumental tree collapsed in the garden after a violent storm, view 1
One November night, a majestic tree several dozen metres tall collapsed, brought down by a violent storm. As it fell, it tore away half of a large tea tree that had inhabited the garden for more than a century. I collected its precious leaves before they lost their energy, marking the beginning of a new work that will probably occupy me for several years: Dead Leaf.
November 2024

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

A tree fell, the beginning of a new story.
November 2024

Monumental tree collapsed in the garden after a violent storm, view 2
One November night, a majestic tree several dozen metres tall collapsed, brought down by a violent storm. As it fell, it tore away half of a large tea tree that had inhabited the garden for more than a century. I collected its precious leaves before they lost their energy, marking the beginning of a new work that will probably occupy me for several years: Dead Leaf.
November 2024

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

A tree fell, the beginning of a new story.
November 2024

Century-old tea tree damaged by a falling tree, origin of the Dead Leaf work
One November night, a majestic tree several dozen metres tall collapsed, brought down by a violent storm. As it fell, it tore away half of a large tea tree that had inhabited the garden for more than a century. I collected its precious leaves before they lost their energy, marking the beginning of a new work that will probably occupy me for several years: Dead Leaf.
November 2024

LEAF | Dead Leaf

Leaves, dead?
November 2024

Fallen monumental tree and disturbed vegetation in the garden, view 3
One November night, a majestic tree several dozen metres tall collapsed, brought down by a violent storm. As it fell, it tore away half of a large tea tree that had inhabited the garden for more than a century. I collected its precious leaves before they lost their energy, marking the beginning of a new work that will probably occupy me for several years: Dead Leaf.
November 2024

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

A tree fell, the beginning of a new story.
November 2024

Monumental tree lying in the middle of the tea garden, view 4
One November night, a majestic tree several dozen metres tall collapsed, brought down by a violent storm. As it fell, it tore away half of a large tea tree that had inhabited the garden for more than a century. I collected its precious leaves before they lost their energy, marking the beginning of a new work that will probably occupy me for several years: Dead Leaf.
November 2024

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

A tree fell, the beginning of a new story.
November 2024

Path cut with a machete between old tea trees and vegetation, view 1
The fragile curves cut through the vegetation with a machete gradually solidify within the landscape, becoming paths and inviting us to move through the garden.
October 2024

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Paths through the garden
October 2024

Path cut with a machete between old tea trees and vegetation, view 2
The fragile curves cut through the vegetation with a machete gradually solidify within the landscape, becoming paths and inviting us to move through the garden.
October 2024

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Paths through the garden
October 2024

Path cut with a machete between old tea trees and vegetation, view 3
The fragile curves cut through the vegetation with a machete gradually solidify within the landscape, becoming paths and inviting us to move through the garden.
October 2024

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Paths through the garden
October 2024

Resin of Time, the first canned percept created from a tea-leaf artwork
Creation of the first “canned percept”: Resin of Time.
October 2024

LEAF | Resin of Time

First “canned percept”: Resin of Time
October 2024

Living, inhabited tea garden revealed through close observation of its biodiversity
The garden is alive, inhabited. It reveals itself to those who take the time to observe it. Little by little, one discovers the richness of those who live there and constitute it.
October 2024

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

The garden is alive, inhabited…
October 2024

View from inside the old tea garden integrated into the surrounding vegetation
In the garden…
October 2024

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

In the garden…
October 2024

Tea leaf conceived as a carrier of percepts and as an artwork
Can a tea leaf become an artwork? Can it carry within it a percept, a singular universe that can be shared and experienced by another?
September 2024

LEAF | Resin of Time

Can a tea leaf become an artwork?
September 2024

Successive stages in the creation of the tea-leaf work Resin of Time
Different experiments and stages in the creation of Resin of Time.
August 2024

LEAF | Resin of Time

Different stages of Resin of Time
August 2024

Experimenting with tea leaves for the creation of Resin of Time, view 1
Experiments and manipulation of the leaves for the creation of Resin of Time.
April 2024

LEAF | Resin of Time

Experiments…
April 2024

Experimenting with tea leaves for the creation of Resin of Time, view 2
Experiments and manipulation of the leaves for the creation of Resin of Time.
April 2024

LEAF | Resin of Time

Experiments…
April 2024

Mapping, paths and the gradual appropriation of the garden space
Drawing paths, getting lost, tracing maps, trying to make the space one’s own.
Image: Copyright Luca Hartleib, from the documentary The Tea Alchemist
August 2024

GARDEN | 02 | Appropriation

Trying to make the space one’s own
August 2024

Tea trees, some a century old, rediscovered beneath thick climbing vegetation
Rediscovering tea trees, some more than a century old, buried for years beneath a thick layer of climbing vegetation…
February 2024

GARDEN | 01 | Introduction

Rediscovering tea trees buried beneath the vegetation
February 2024

Narrow machete-cut path traced between century-old tea trees in the garden
The guiding idea was to locate the century-old tea trees hidden within the vegetation, then simply trace narrow paths between them, allowing access without altering what surrounds them.
February 2024

GARDEN | 01 | Introduction

Tracing narrow paths between the trees, to reach them without altering the surrounding nature
February 2024

First entry into the abandoned tea garden through very dense vegetation
Entering the garden for the first time, with the humility this requires. Every step is a stroke of the machete, life extinguished so that we can pass.
February 2024

GARDEN | 01 | Introduction

Entering the garden for the first time
February 2024

Abandoned tea garden where wild vegetation had reclaimed the space
I bought an old abandoned tea garden without ever having set foot there. For years, nature had been reclaiming it, with all the chaos that gives it its charm, making it almost impossible for a person to move through it. Of course, I was offered the option of “cleaning up” the garden and keeping only the tea trees, as all the neighbours do. Instead, I chose to buy a dream, wild and inaccessible.
February 2024

GARDEN | 01 | Introduction

For years, nature had been reclaiming the garden, with all the chaos that gives it its charm.
February 2024

Acquiring an abandoned old tea garden as the founding gesture of the artistic project
Acquiring an abandoned garden of old tea trees, without reason and above all without purpose, was probably the founding gesture of this artistic adventure.
January 2024

GARDEN | 01 | Introduction

Acquiring an abandoned garden, without reason
January 2024

Road leading to the tea garden in the mountains of the Golden Triangle
The garden lies at the end of this road, nestled in a fold of the Golden Triangle, along the blurred and porous border between Thailand and Shan State.
December 2023

GARDEN | 01 | Introduction

The garden lies at the end of this road…
December 2023

First presentation of Listening to the Leaves in Avignon, view 1
First presentation of the performance Listening to the leaves in Avignon, France.
September 2023, Atelier Yo, Avignon, France

Listening to the leaves

First presentation of Listening to the leaves
September 2023, Atelier Yo, Avignon, France

First presentation of Listening to the Leaves in Avignon, view 2
First presentation of the performance Listening to the leaves in Avignon, France.
September 2023, Atelier Yo, Avignon, France

Listening to the leaves

First presentation of Listening to the leaves
September 2023, Atelier Yo, Avignon, France

First presentation of Listening to the Leaves in Avignon, view 3
First presentation of the performance Listening to the leaves in Avignon, France.
September 2023, Atelier Yo, Avignon, France

Listening to the leaves

First presentation of Listening to the leaves
September 2023, Atelier Yo, Avignon, France

First presentation of Listening to the Leaves in Avignon, view 4
First presentation of the performance Listening to the leaves in Avignon, France.
September 2023, Atelier Yo, Avignon, France

Listening to the leaves

First presentation of Listening to the leaves
September 2023, Atelier Yo, Avignon, France

First presentation of Listening to the Leaves in Avignon, view 5
First presentation of the performance Listening to the leaves in Avignon, France.
September 2023, Atelier Yo, Avignon, France

Listening to the leaves

First presentation of Listening to the leaves
September 2023, Atelier Yo, Avignon, France

Sculpting the inner character of a tea leaf through invisible interventions
The aim is to sculpt the tea leaf. But this should not be understood as a simple play on its visual appearance. What I seek to manipulate, through subtle interventions, lies at the heart of the leaf and remains invisible to the eye. It is this material, at the molecular scale, that will shape the experience produced through contact with the leaf and allow the artwork to manifest itself.
May 2023

LEAF

Sculpting the leaf from within
May 2023

Fresh tea leaf as living, sensory and malleable material, view 1
A freshly picked tea leaf is a particularly rich and malleable material, capable of producing an infinite range of smells and sensations, and of bringing forth genuine sensory and emotional worlds in the other.
April 2023

LEAF

A material in a state of becoming
April 2023

Fresh tea leaf as living, sensory and malleable material, view 2
A freshly picked tea leaf is a particularly rich and malleable material, capable of producing an infinite range of smells and sensations, and of bringing forth genuine sensory and emotional worlds in the other.
April 2023

LEAF

A material in a state of becoming
April 2023