La folie de Charles

Belgian designer Charles Kaisin has devised a table made of trees, suspended in a surrealist atmosphere, for his latest performance last April. The table was envisioned to seem "from the other side of Lewis Carroll's Wonderland mirror, to which Alice invites us from her marvellous land." The table seeks to be fully adaptable, both in width and length. It can adapt to every interior, depending on the choice of wood. Kaisin also notes how it "evolves with the season, as you decorate it with candles or garlands."

The first, monumental version, was the fruit of six months of work, and is made of oak and beech wood. Devised for the performance La folie de Charles, sa table e ses hôtes (The fantasy of Charles, his table and his guests), the table supported a dinner that was meant to evoke a surrealist dream. Each guest wore the surrealist garb of his or her choice — from a bald soprano and a man-in-the-moon with a balloon halo, to a Gay Pride pope, a bird-woman, and a man wearing Magritte's bowler hat — and was invited to an extravagant meal. In order to reach the table, in which numerous birds flew from branch to branch, guests traversed a white veil. The menu was divided between "terrestrial" and "spiritual foods", and the meal was periodically interrupted by performances, from opera arias to spirituals.