animate | inanimate

2012

framed print, weeds, jar

As a performative phenomenon, the garden is an impermanent territory, which undergoes change, metamorphosis, destruction and decay. As a space where entropic possibilities occur through forms of evolutionary and unpredictable biological and synthetic relationships, the garden is a contrived sanctuary, which offers a consideration of the broader questions regarding how the environment operates not only as an ideal, but also as space of contestation where social relationships are rearranged and redefined. Against the cultural and historical constructions of the utopian ideal, I suggest that the garden is instead a zone for the contemplation of universal concerns regarding the social, ecological and physical consequences of expanding urbanization and globalization. As a first time visitor to Berlin, the emphasis of the garden in the domestic and urban landscape is immediately apparent. Reflecting this observation, the collected forms reinforce my interest in contrasts and play on the notion of what is real and what is not. Juxtaposed as decorative interior ornaments, the still life is open to viewer interpretation of what is animate or inanimate. The framed print purchased from a Kreuzberg street stall, is a representation of a signed (yet unknown) artist’s idealistic garden in full bloom, yet the decomposing weeds hand picked from the grassy wasteland surrounding Blu’s iconic mural, aim to intimately emphasise the inevitability of all living forms.