THE GARDEN PROJECT
2019-2020
25 Photographs
Various formats
Sound 4:16 min | 5:22 min
Audio text : Susan Griffin (trad. Emilie Hache) | Adaptation and direction : Isaline Dupond Jacquemart
Poem
25 Photographs
Various formats
Sound 4:16 min | 5:22 min
Audio text : Susan Griffin (trad. Emilie Hache) | Adaptation and direction : Isaline Dupond Jacquemart
Poem
The Garden
Project is a visual, sound and textual multimedia piece of work exploring
the connections between ecofeminism, gardening and the mother-daughter
relationship. At the intersections between staged photography and
ethnofiction, The Garden Project draws a fil rouge intertwining ecosystem,
care and creation.
This is the roots of the garden project
He was cutting the bamboos.
The bamboos of her garden?
The bamboos she was taking care of.
Because the bamboos were overflowing the grid and his place.
His adjoining property.
In fact, the bamboos were defying the notion itself of property. And because of this, they needed to be cut.
Cut at the foot.
She told him to stop.
He cut one more.
She told him they were the plants she was taking care of.
He cut one more.
Because nature needs to be controlled and tamed before she turns against you, before she harms you.
What are you doing? she asked.
“Just cutting the bad weeds which are overflowing onto my place.”
And he threw the cut stem into the garden, far from his place.
The bad weed.
Because nature needs to be put under his power?
The power to characterize, the bad weed.
The power to give death.
He said that roundup would do wonders.
Because she could against him. Nature could turn against him.
Because she questions the notion itself of property.
The notion of the individual self.
The notion of a power deriving from a single individual.
The weeds were the vulnerable fault in the physical and notional grid.
He said that moles were invading his place
He said that fire cones were falling in his grass, harming his mower.
And he was mowing his grass every week.
He said that cats were shitting in his grass.
The cats from the others and from no one.
Some cats from the garden she was taking care of.
This garden that took its roots in the same soil as those bamboos.
The punk garden.
The garden project.
A whole ecosystem, visual, vegetal, animal and corporal reclaiming other roots.
Switching from power over to power with, from individual to net.
This is the garden.
The garden she is taking care of.
This is the garden where everyday things can be read in another way, building a bridge between ecology and feminism: the ecofeminist interface.
From taking care of growing plants to staging herself in this ecosystem she is a part of.
It is growing.
From care to ecology.
She waters the tomato plants, sometimes.
The garden as a way to politicize our everyday relationship to an ecosystem.
He was cutting the bamboos.
The bamboos of her garden?
The bamboos she was taking care of.
Because the bamboos were overflowing the grid and his place.
His adjoining property.
In fact, the bamboos were defying the notion itself of property. And because of this, they needed to be cut.
Cut at the foot.
She told him to stop.
He cut one more.
She told him they were the plants she was taking care of.
He cut one more.
Because nature needs to be controlled and tamed before she turns against you, before she harms you.
What are you doing? she asked.
“Just cutting the bad weeds which are overflowing onto my place.”
And he threw the cut stem into the garden, far from his place.
The bad weed.
Because nature needs to be put under his power?
The power to characterize, the bad weed.
The power to give death.
He said that roundup would do wonders.
Because she could against him. Nature could turn against him.
Because she questions the notion itself of property.
The notion of the individual self.
The notion of a power deriving from a single individual.
The weeds were the vulnerable fault in the physical and notional grid.
He said that moles were invading his place
He said that fire cones were falling in his grass, harming his mower.
And he was mowing his grass every week.
He said that cats were shitting in his grass.
The cats from the others and from no one.
Some cats from the garden she was taking care of.
This garden that took its roots in the same soil as those bamboos.
The punk garden.
The garden project.
A whole ecosystem, visual, vegetal, animal and corporal reclaiming other roots.
Switching from power over to power with, from individual to net.
This is the garden.
The garden she is taking care of.
This is the garden where everyday things can be read in another way, building a bridge between ecology and feminism: the ecofeminist interface.
From taking care of growing plants to staging herself in this ecosystem she is a part of.
It is growing.
From care to ecology.
She waters the tomato plants, sometimes.
The garden as a way to politicize our everyday relationship to an ecosystem.
This is the Gardening Interface.
From the social production of women, linked to the sphere of nature, to the upheaval of the nature/culture dichotomy.
It flows like a torrent.
Nature as a system of concepts and a social production kneaded with relations of domination.
But this net of relations as an ecosystem in which we are vivid actors,
And from daily life to the reinvention of a whole net of images.
The own process of image production constituting the garden (project),
And her daily relationship to the garden sets roots to reinvent our relationship with the ecosystem we are a part of.
She is a part of the garden and the garden is a part of her.
She is a part of these photographs and these photographs are a part of her now.
Intertwining realities beyond dichotomies.
This is the Garden Project.
Documenting, staging, recreating.
Standpoint.
Reality, mythologies, concepts.
Relationships.
The Garden Project is an attempt to materialize these relationships in the process of reinvention: a visual and perceptible interface reclaiming another effectivity of our own concepts and imaginary words.
Et je paille le sol à l’automne pour que ça travaille tout l’hiver. Vingt à trente centimètres de foin à l’autonome, tout l’hiver ça travaille, les verres de terre commencent à venir, le foin s’affaisse et commence à se décomposer et à être transformé.
Je fais une butte forestière. On creuse pour mettre du bois qui va dépasser de la terre, on enterre du bois mort, et sur ce bois entassé on met un peu de terre et par-dessus la paille, à l'automne, pour que ça travaille tout l’hiver.
J’aime voir s’installer les plantes simplement dans le jardin, j’associe les plantes.
Jamais laisser la terre à nue.
Je favorise tous les auxiliaires, tous les êtres vivants y compris les champignons, mycélium et les taupes, je m’entends bien avec les taupes.
This ecosystem is more a process than an outcome: it is also a dynamic relationship between a mother and daughter.
The daughter as a photographer.
The mother as a model, a gardener and an image creator.
The creation as a relation.
Staging as a double process: from one imaginary world to another.
Care and solidarities in this special interface irrigate the space of the garden project.
This is the garden she is taking care of, but also this is the daughter she is taking care of.
But the garden project as a creative project is also in itself a form of care.
A way to revitalize one interface, the garden and its carer, by another interface, the production of images.
It is also a rematerialization of the mother-daughter relationship, a way to extend solidarities by the social production: a visual, sound and textual creation.
And this social production is not only a process but also a relationship.
It is the very own recognition and (re)claim of links inside an ecosystem, which constitute this very ecosystem.
From the social production of women, linked to the sphere of nature, to the upheaval of the nature/culture dichotomy.
It flows like a torrent.
Nature as a system of concepts and a social production kneaded with relations of domination.
But this net of relations as an ecosystem in which we are vivid actors,
And from daily life to the reinvention of a whole net of images.
The own process of image production constituting the garden (project),
And her daily relationship to the garden sets roots to reinvent our relationship with the ecosystem we are a part of.
She is a part of the garden and the garden is a part of her.
She is a part of these photographs and these photographs are a part of her now.
Intertwining realities beyond dichotomies.
This is the Garden Project.
Documenting, staging, recreating.
Standpoint.
Reality, mythologies, concepts.
Relationships.
The Garden Project is an attempt to materialize these relationships in the process of reinvention: a visual and perceptible interface reclaiming another effectivity of our own concepts and imaginary words.
Et je paille le sol à l’automne pour que ça travaille tout l’hiver. Vingt à trente centimètres de foin à l’autonome, tout l’hiver ça travaille, les verres de terre commencent à venir, le foin s’affaisse et commence à se décomposer et à être transformé.
Je fais une butte forestière. On creuse pour mettre du bois qui va dépasser de la terre, on enterre du bois mort, et sur ce bois entassé on met un peu de terre et par-dessus la paille, à l'automne, pour que ça travaille tout l’hiver.
J’aime voir s’installer les plantes simplement dans le jardin, j’associe les plantes.
Jamais laisser la terre à nue.
Je favorise tous les auxiliaires, tous les êtres vivants y compris les champignons, mycélium et les taupes, je m’entends bien avec les taupes.
This ecosystem is more a process than an outcome: it is also a dynamic relationship between a mother and daughter.
The daughter as a photographer.
The mother as a model, a gardener and an image creator.
The creation as a relation.
Staging as a double process: from one imaginary world to another.
Care and solidarities in this special interface irrigate the space of the garden project.
This is the garden she is taking care of, but also this is the daughter she is taking care of.
But the garden project as a creative project is also in itself a form of care.
A way to revitalize one interface, the garden and its carer, by another interface, the production of images.
It is also a rematerialization of the mother-daughter relationship, a way to extend solidarities by the social production: a visual, sound and textual creation.
And this social production is not only a process but also a relationship.
It is the very own recognition and (re)claim of links inside an ecosystem, which constitute this very ecosystem.