Thinking about the garden

THINKING ABOUT THE GARDEN



2007

Five years ago I found a piece of neglected land.


The Garden from the beginning was a place of engagement where physical input brought about results.

This sustained engagement was necessary in order to transform the space and gradually involved more and more people who added their own unique out-look to this whole.

To this day the space is “held” and brought about by all those involved with it. There is an attention to detail and sense of dometsic “care” in holding this space together. Noticing the “rightness” of this order and adjusting it as one would furniture in a living room is about recognising the part we all play in what it is. It comes to represent our relationship to one another.
In the garden the minor adjustments change from season to season and from each unique combination of human interaction at any one time. It may involve planting, weeding, making fires, feeding birds, initiating or responding to new sculptures or designs at various locations, watering plants or simply walking around the garden and taking in the details as part of a whole.
The garden is an extension of our own movement. When we walk through it or dwell in a chosen area, we unfold it.

Whilst Researching for this project I came across examples where places were used as maps that stored information that was released only through making connections by moving through that space . There were “Palaces of the Mind” in the Medieval era and Japanese contemplation gardens connected with Shinto nature religions. Now these spaces have become embedded within computer systems as “virtual” landscapes. All these systems are useful for Autistic people in particular because information depends on physical engagement and there is a slow release which means images do not overwhelm. They are unstead made tangible through direct experience and contact.

The garden then can create a kind of feedback loop where memory can be stored and brought back up by initiating the movement that originally gave rise to it. When the garden is shared by many, these memories build and interlink with others.

This was the original intention behind the garden.