THE PROGRAM
10th PhotoBrussels Festival
Symbolism · Esotericism · Occultism (1860–1918)
TinyGallery in collaboration with Maison Hannon welcome
Delphine d'Elia & Monya Ghabantani
22 January → 26 February
Opening night: Thursday 22 January
Visits from Wednesday to Sunday · 3–6 PM
Fee: 7 euros
TinyGallery · Rue de la Cuve 26 · 1050 Ixelles · Brussels
The Context: From alchemy to esotericism, Grand Art in Photography explores Symbolist photographic practices (1860–1918), where the medium oscillated between science and ritual. Early processes such as salt printing, gum bichromate, Van Dyke and optical staging were infused with mystical symbolism, occult societies, spiritualist séances and quasi-alchemical experiments. Photography was a threshold: half laboratory, half revelation.
To celebrate the 10th PhotoBrussels Festival participation, this historical exhibition, presented in collaboration with Maison Hannon, extends into TinyGallery through contemporary works that echo Symbolist concerns. Delphine d’Elia reactivates family archives through cyanotype overlays, creating impossible encounters between multiple generations. Monya Ghabantani photographs worn-out stone angels, guardians eroded by time, revealing what these fragile figures disclose about mourning, belief and protection.
Together, the historical and contemporary works ask: what do we still expect photography to hold? Memory, magic, evidence, presence — or a quiet space for ghosts, angels, and the unseen?
Programme · Visits & Talks
7 € ticket · limited capacity · booking recommended.
Thu · 22 January · 5–8:30 PM
Opening night of the Photo Brussels Festival 2026
Official launch of the 10th PhotoBrussels Festival participation with welcome drink and introduction by the curator. First look at the show before the Sunday artist talks.
Begin the journey through mystical photography and alternative processes in an intimate early-evening opening.
Sun · 25 January · 3–5 PM
Ghost families & tired angels – Artist talks
Artist talks with Delphine d’Elia and Monya Ghabantani. A double conversation on lineage, memory, absence, mourning and the quiet magic of analogue processes.
Salt-paper prints and Cyanotype ghosts meet worn-out cemetery angels — a Sunday séance of images, memory and care.
SAT · 31 JANUARY · 3–5 PM
Secret chemistry: from alchemists to the Rose+Croix
A guided tour into occult and Symbolist photographic practices: early chemical experiments, spiritualist imagery, pictorialism, esoteric salons and Rosicrucian aesthetics.
From silver salts to spirit photographs, discover a time when every print felt like an incantation.
Sat · 7 February · 5–7 PM · Special Event
Annick Donkers – UN-IDENTIFIED: believing in extraterrestrials
Special evening with photographer Annick Donkers and her project / photobook UN-IDENTIFIED, exploring UFO believers, abduction stories, alien base maps and cosmic mythologies. Includes presentation, discussion and book signing.
UFO festivals, conspiracy diagrams and starry nights — where documentary drifts into cosmic belief.
Sun · 8 February · 3–5 PM
Mothers, daughters, ghosts: rewriting the family album
Focus on Delphine d’Elia’s cyanotype series. Multi-generational portraits, archive overlays and discussions on invisible filiation and gentle acts of repair.
The family album glitches — and those who were missing step back into the frame.
Sun · 15 February · 3–5 PM
The Fatigue of Angels – Worn-out guardians
Focus on Monya Ghabantani’s photographic work exploring sculpted angels, erosion, mourning rituals and the fragile humanity reflected in stone guardians.
Cracked, darkened, almost human — the angels that watch over us are tired too.
Sun · 22 February · 3–5 PM
Images as talismans – Future heritages
Finissage featuring a round table with the artists and curator. Conversation on images as talismans, relics, traces of life and future memory.
Cyanotype mothers, tired angels and Symbolist visions gather — a meditation on what images preserve.