Wednesday 26 July 2017

a garden where there is no garden

Some of the best gardens, the very best gardens are ephemeral intrusions into places where there was no garden before.  Theses things are not "the right plant in the right place". They are not built with a mind to legacy or how the garden will become. They are all out invasions, the march of the green into a place it neither belongs nor is welcome.

Here is one made of sound and containers of greenery. from this emerges the first rule; the green must drown the space. A few pots are not enough. There must be a forest.

Garden State - Venice Biennale from kling klang klong on Vimeo.

This one below is Marmaza, an anarchic collection of privately owned plants that have been liberated from their owners and brought together as is for a warehouse rave for plants. For this one, the plants could be moved by the visitors, as if they were dancers in the space. The large one must have presented some challenges, mind. Maybe they laid on some hoists, sack trucks and a block and tackle. From this one comes the second rule; the green must do something other than just stand there and be pretty, the garden must have urgent, ungovernable and exotic purpose.


Our very favourite green invasion space, the Southbank Concrete Garden, is closed for renovation. All across the walks around it at the moment, posters are fixed to trees decrying the horrible, unpopular, aggravating and endlessly reflung plan to overclose, enclose and de-public the space, lock the people's concrete palace under hi-tech private glasshouses. Sod that for a game of soldiers.

wheelbarrow deckchair Happy anniversary

From this emerges principles third. fourth and final.

Third: The space must live and change. It is not a permanent installation, though it may be (as Southbank is) always a garden.

Fourth: It must invite exploration, experience and interaction. You must be able to dwell in it, bear in the wood or adam and eve, a mole in a hole or a rat in a can. Whatever is is you must be able to crawl into it and sit, relax, enjoy.

Final: The space must be accessible.  

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