Further Reading
The Alternative Village Fete.
September 27th 2009
It was on the afternoon of September 27th 2009, outside the National Theatre that I considered my summer over and done with. The National Theatre’s annual summer ‘Watch this Space Festival’, a programme of outdoors theatre, circus, music, dance and comedy concluded…all my colleague (Chris Lewis Jones) and I had to do was to take apart and clear away the gardens.
Once the market stalls had been dismantled and removed, the last job to be undertaken would be to roll up the Astroturf. Chris and I however departed London long before that - bound for St Pancras train station, to board a dawdling train to Nottingham.
I am fascinated with reductionism and that final weekend’s activity, the Alternative Village Fete was very much akin to a travelling circus…just imagine all the logistical genius that ensues… the inventiveness of packing…making things small to make them big. In bringing the Village Fete to fruition, materials are unpacked, then erected and upon completion they are disassembled and packed away once more. There is something rather wonderful about things which fold up and fold down…and after that, small things can be broken down further still.
Chris and I had been invited by Home Live Art to participate in this the second village fete outside the National Theatre. Home presented a weekend of indulgences consisting of artists’, craft and produce stalls, performances and participatory activities. Home de-urbanised a plot of land outside the National Theatre and turned it into a riot of vitality and spectacle.
The ‘Grow your Own - Nu-miniature gardens and allotments’ project arrived on site in little more than half a dozen or so cardboard boxes. The appropriateness of the subject mater and the location of Home’s mini rural fete would provide the ideal backdrop for this gardening venture. Home Live Art under the directorship of Laura Godfrey Isaacs and Mimi Banks is known for initiating a diverse range of projects, from the progressive Church Ale performance festival, celebrating the feast day of St Margaret (20th July), the Festival of Light and the Art of Protest exhibition. Each testifies to their commitment to showcase innovative live art events and to the presentation of artwork in wide contexts.
Chris and I have long held interests in both folk music and folk traditions. Miniature gardens and their life size counterparts, domestic gardens, reflect within them native folk traditions. The names of the plants usually encompass a rich symbolic history. For an end-user a personal history will often be attached to the choice of a plant for the garden, perhaps marking a grave for a pet or holding a cherished memory for a loved one. The Iris for example is connected to wisdom and valour, the Aster to innocence and purity and Basil to hatred. The garden today is seen as an additional room or as an extension to the house and our gardens are small pieces of nature in urban settings.
The idea of creating our miniature gardens and allotments project gave chase from several ideas, firstly a proposal to curate an exhibition of artists’ miniature gardens and secondly a project for the former Oldknows Studio Group, which considered the conversion of the artist studios into a village fete environment, using the theme of ‘Harvest Festival’ as its inspiration. With stalls erected, competitions entered and produce made for sale, the event would have been undertaken in a spirit of celebration and collaboration.
Research for this project directed me to look at how garden miniaturisation is used within the public realm and how the miniature garden has been exploited and commodified. ‘The Stand-Up Garden’ is an American pastime: indeed, marketing in support of the websites suggests that it is America’s favourite pastime. But this is not strictly speaking gardening on a miniature scale. The idea behind these types of gardens is of a garden that is contained within a trough and that can be nurtured whilst standing up. Features and Benefitsof the Stand-Up Garden include, ‘Ergonomicallycorrect elevated garden bed. New! Durable, hi-tech UV-resistant injection moulded garden vessel that has easy mobility via non-marring casters with brakes.’
‘Dish Mary Gardens’ are much more attractive to me in terms of their conceptual possibilities. The web site that directed me toward Dish Mary Gardens informs us that: ‘The bed-fast and shut-in finds it a great attraction to combine religion with hobby activity.’ The Dish Mary Garden originated in monasteries and at shrines; however research reveals that individuals now construct botanical shrines at home. Plants that are associated with Christian thought are used in these gardens along with a plastic statue of our Lady.
In the main the creativity shown towards miniature gardening might I suggest be underdeveloped beyond the usual (I think this is where the embryonic idea of commissioning artists to make and to tender miniature plots materialised). There may be exceptions to the usual…however I have not as yet come upon them. Generally the miniature garden encompasses the use of dolls house furniture and materials that are scaled accordingly. The results can be elaborate and the stylised gardens are usually in keeping with the period dolls house…scaling down further still, the 00 gauge model makers craft is a much-refined adaptation to the art of miniaturisation.
Miniature Alpine gardens are very popular at this time and make use of prefabricated stone effect pots and troughs. These DIY wildernesses can be purchased ready constructed or tailor made to the individual. Each item can be purchased separately from a garden centre and at the moment they are marketed akin to craft. The gardening sector is on a constant quest to redefine gardening. Marketeers seek a new vocabulary to help create new sub-categories in modern gardening, into which new audiences will be snared. Pocket gardens are for the conscious urban dweller and mini-spaces are for the economic gardener, not in terms of cash spent but delicacy of taste. When we decided the title of our activity, ‘Grow Your Own, Nu-gardens and Allotments’, we were influenced by the terminology used to sell and promote ‘the New’ - or the more fashionable ‘Nu’ as in ‘Nu Urban Gardens’.
Chris and I are interested in contemporary ‘guerrilla’ movements…in fine art, in ceramics and in gardening. The fashionable extreme guerrilla gardener keen on undertaking illicit planting can now carry innovative, discreet weaponry in their own ‘his and hers’ subversive gardener attaché case. At your disposal are grenade-shaped ‘’seed bombs’’, sold in packs of four.
One of our principal interests in miniature gardens and allotments projects revolves around ‘uncertainty’ and ‘the familiar’ and the ‘Unheimliche’. During the Watch This Space show, several plots were created by individuals exploring the possibility of ‘the alternative’, the ‘original’ and ‘the different’. As judges we recognised that these gardens explore uncomfortable terrains…the graveyard and the earth hole revealed. Whilst the plots were playful (yet morbid), they were the exceptions to the familiar. Other plots incorporated similar details such as miniature memorial stones for dead pets. On numerous occasions during the afternoon adults played happily in the plots with their children; several admitted that they had not played like this since they were young themselves. I heard several children ask their parents if they could ‘do more of this’ when they returned home.
It is not unusual for the contemporary artist to take existing, familiar ideas and completely turn them inside out. Artists who create in this way often produce quite startling work. New responses to ‘the common’ and ‘the familiar’ may often reconstruct the fixed or the traditional. A re-examination of the everyday can aid progression toward the stimulation of new ideas and a new approach to the orthodox.
The ‘Grow your own’ project for Home ultimately consisted of the public creating the work; we provided carefully chosen materials and much more besides…our attention to detail, …the costume, the performance, the organisation, the administration, our two role-playing characters and the competition, the Golden Spade Award for Best in Show. In a project like this, the artist subtly orchestrates the environment.
There were 28 plots available for the public to use. These ranged across two adjoining tables; each table filled with first-rate riddled soil. The plots were divided up equally into 10 x 14 inch spaces (we were keen to use inches over centimetres). From the outset (12 noon), demand from the public to take on plots was feverish. In order for us to manage the site, only 7 plots were to be allocated per hour (Society rules and regulations, page 4, section 2, paragraph 2). On a first-come-first-served basis, the public were given free choice over which plot they desired. It did not go un-noticed by Chris and me that the first-comers were keen to make sure that their plots were not located next to neighbouring ones. This territorial claim made sense as it provided plenty of elbow room to toil the land and to erect perimeter fencing.
We anticipate in the future necessitating some cultural anthropological research by means of participant observation. The fieldwork and the data collected will aid us in developing and improving our garden protocol and governance. Our first Club & Society rulebook will be ready for the 2010 season.
As the number of plots was exhausted, demands on materials and space became significant. Garden builders reacted with increased creativity, ingenuity and inventiveness. On plot number 27 (once the plot had been secured and official registration etiquette observed), the family undertook their entire preliminary planning and preparation at the two worktables; only after that was completed did they return to their plot for final finishing.
The combined family effort and their attention to detail and ingenuity did not go unnoticed by the judges. At 2.45pm Chris and I surveyed each plot in turn and made our decisions…it was unanimous. We took to the stage to announce and present to the winners the 2009 Golden Spade award. The trophy, a golden spade dug into a sod of grass was awarded to the family of Plot 27.
Following the winners’ proclamation, the miniature gardens were opened up for further public competition and scrutiny. Would the public agree with the judges’ choice? These private spaces were opened into the broader public space, where both participants and viewers had an opportunity to explore new conceptual and geographical territories. This is not unlike garden festivals such as the Chelsea Flower Show where the public view cheek by jowl traditional and experimental gardens.
The miniature gardens drew such public interest that our hosts Home Live Art decided it would be a good idea if the plots were the last items to be taken down.
…And this is where I began.
Written by NUG member Simon Withers.
This article originally appeared on the, 'Nottingham Visual Arts' website (2009).
Sandplay Therapy Rooms
During the development of the Nu Urban Gardeners I undertook various types of research on material. Some of which over a period of time could become more integrated into NUG practice...Something that may well hold an Ex-post-Facto influence on NUG practice are Sandplay Therapy Rooms.
Sandplay is a ‘hands on’ psychological work and is generally applied within a free and protected space. The client creates a concrete manifestation from his or her imagination using sand, water and miniature objects. Sandplay aids the client’s internal symbolic world and with sufficient time and understanding sandplay taps into the layers of the pre-verbal unconscious mind and brings it into the conscious world. What is of interest is here the use of sandplay that facilitates and stimulates the creative process.
Dora Kaiff developed Jungian-based sandplay therapy out of her work with Margaret Lowenfeld (British psychiatrist). Sandplay will perhaps play a role within NUG gardening in the future and likewise the NUGs may well develop a more clear understanding of sandplay in both theory and practice.
September 27th 2009
It was on the afternoon of September 27th 2009, outside the National Theatre that I considered my summer over and done with. The National Theatre’s annual summer ‘Watch this Space Festival’, a programme of outdoors theatre, circus, music, dance and comedy concluded…all my colleague (Chris Lewis Jones) and I had to do was to take apart and clear away the gardens.
Once the market stalls had been dismantled and removed, the last job to be undertaken would be to roll up the Astroturf. Chris and I however departed London long before that - bound for St Pancras train station, to board a dawdling train to Nottingham.
I am fascinated with reductionism and that final weekend’s activity, the Alternative Village Fete was very much akin to a travelling circus…just imagine all the logistical genius that ensues… the inventiveness of packing…making things small to make them big. In bringing the Village Fete to fruition, materials are unpacked, then erected and upon completion they are disassembled and packed away once more. There is something rather wonderful about things which fold up and fold down…and after that, small things can be broken down further still.
Chris and I had been invited by Home Live Art to participate in this the second village fete outside the National Theatre. Home presented a weekend of indulgences consisting of artists’, craft and produce stalls, performances and participatory activities. Home de-urbanised a plot of land outside the National Theatre and turned it into a riot of vitality and spectacle.
The ‘Grow your Own - Nu-miniature gardens and allotments’ project arrived on site in little more than half a dozen or so cardboard boxes. The appropriateness of the subject mater and the location of Home’s mini rural fete would provide the ideal backdrop for this gardening venture. Home Live Art under the directorship of Laura Godfrey Isaacs and Mimi Banks is known for initiating a diverse range of projects, from the progressive Church Ale performance festival, celebrating the feast day of St Margaret (20th July), the Festival of Light and the Art of Protest exhibition. Each testifies to their commitment to showcase innovative live art events and to the presentation of artwork in wide contexts.
Chris and I have long held interests in both folk music and folk traditions. Miniature gardens and their life size counterparts, domestic gardens, reflect within them native folk traditions. The names of the plants usually encompass a rich symbolic history. For an end-user a personal history will often be attached to the choice of a plant for the garden, perhaps marking a grave for a pet or holding a cherished memory for a loved one. The Iris for example is connected to wisdom and valour, the Aster to innocence and purity and Basil to hatred. The garden today is seen as an additional room or as an extension to the house and our gardens are small pieces of nature in urban settings.
The idea of creating our miniature gardens and allotments project gave chase from several ideas, firstly a proposal to curate an exhibition of artists’ miniature gardens and secondly a project for the former Oldknows Studio Group, which considered the conversion of the artist studios into a village fete environment, using the theme of ‘Harvest Festival’ as its inspiration. With stalls erected, competitions entered and produce made for sale, the event would have been undertaken in a spirit of celebration and collaboration.
Research for this project directed me to look at how garden miniaturisation is used within the public realm and how the miniature garden has been exploited and commodified. ‘The Stand-Up Garden’ is an American pastime: indeed, marketing in support of the websites suggests that it is America’s favourite pastime. But this is not strictly speaking gardening on a miniature scale. The idea behind these types of gardens is of a garden that is contained within a trough and that can be nurtured whilst standing up. Features and Benefitsof the Stand-Up Garden include, ‘Ergonomicallycorrect elevated garden bed. New! Durable, hi-tech UV-resistant injection moulded garden vessel that has easy mobility via non-marring casters with brakes.’
‘Dish Mary Gardens’ are much more attractive to me in terms of their conceptual possibilities. The web site that directed me toward Dish Mary Gardens informs us that: ‘The bed-fast and shut-in finds it a great attraction to combine religion with hobby activity.’ The Dish Mary Garden originated in monasteries and at shrines; however research reveals that individuals now construct botanical shrines at home. Plants that are associated with Christian thought are used in these gardens along with a plastic statue of our Lady.
In the main the creativity shown towards miniature gardening might I suggest be underdeveloped beyond the usual (I think this is where the embryonic idea of commissioning artists to make and to tender miniature plots materialised). There may be exceptions to the usual…however I have not as yet come upon them. Generally the miniature garden encompasses the use of dolls house furniture and materials that are scaled accordingly. The results can be elaborate and the stylised gardens are usually in keeping with the period dolls house…scaling down further still, the 00 gauge model makers craft is a much-refined adaptation to the art of miniaturisation.
Miniature Alpine gardens are very popular at this time and make use of prefabricated stone effect pots and troughs. These DIY wildernesses can be purchased ready constructed or tailor made to the individual. Each item can be purchased separately from a garden centre and at the moment they are marketed akin to craft. The gardening sector is on a constant quest to redefine gardening. Marketeers seek a new vocabulary to help create new sub-categories in modern gardening, into which new audiences will be snared. Pocket gardens are for the conscious urban dweller and mini-spaces are for the economic gardener, not in terms of cash spent but delicacy of taste. When we decided the title of our activity, ‘Grow Your Own, Nu-gardens and Allotments’, we were influenced by the terminology used to sell and promote ‘the New’ - or the more fashionable ‘Nu’ as in ‘Nu Urban Gardens’.
Chris and I are interested in contemporary ‘guerrilla’ movements…in fine art, in ceramics and in gardening. The fashionable extreme guerrilla gardener keen on undertaking illicit planting can now carry innovative, discreet weaponry in their own ‘his and hers’ subversive gardener attaché case. At your disposal are grenade-shaped ‘’seed bombs’’, sold in packs of four.
One of our principal interests in miniature gardens and allotments projects revolves around ‘uncertainty’ and ‘the familiar’ and the ‘Unheimliche’. During the Watch This Space show, several plots were created by individuals exploring the possibility of ‘the alternative’, the ‘original’ and ‘the different’. As judges we recognised that these gardens explore uncomfortable terrains…the graveyard and the earth hole revealed. Whilst the plots were playful (yet morbid), they were the exceptions to the familiar. Other plots incorporated similar details such as miniature memorial stones for dead pets. On numerous occasions during the afternoon adults played happily in the plots with their children; several admitted that they had not played like this since they were young themselves. I heard several children ask their parents if they could ‘do more of this’ when they returned home.
It is not unusual for the contemporary artist to take existing, familiar ideas and completely turn them inside out. Artists who create in this way often produce quite startling work. New responses to ‘the common’ and ‘the familiar’ may often reconstruct the fixed or the traditional. A re-examination of the everyday can aid progression toward the stimulation of new ideas and a new approach to the orthodox.
The ‘Grow your own’ project for Home ultimately consisted of the public creating the work; we provided carefully chosen materials and much more besides…our attention to detail, …the costume, the performance, the organisation, the administration, our two role-playing characters and the competition, the Golden Spade Award for Best in Show. In a project like this, the artist subtly orchestrates the environment.
There were 28 plots available for the public to use. These ranged across two adjoining tables; each table filled with first-rate riddled soil. The plots were divided up equally into 10 x 14 inch spaces (we were keen to use inches over centimetres). From the outset (12 noon), demand from the public to take on plots was feverish. In order for us to manage the site, only 7 plots were to be allocated per hour (Society rules and regulations, page 4, section 2, paragraph 2). On a first-come-first-served basis, the public were given free choice over which plot they desired. It did not go un-noticed by Chris and me that the first-comers were keen to make sure that their plots were not located next to neighbouring ones. This territorial claim made sense as it provided plenty of elbow room to toil the land and to erect perimeter fencing.
We anticipate in the future necessitating some cultural anthropological research by means of participant observation. The fieldwork and the data collected will aid us in developing and improving our garden protocol and governance. Our first Club & Society rulebook will be ready for the 2010 season.
As the number of plots was exhausted, demands on materials and space became significant. Garden builders reacted with increased creativity, ingenuity and inventiveness. On plot number 27 (once the plot had been secured and official registration etiquette observed), the family undertook their entire preliminary planning and preparation at the two worktables; only after that was completed did they return to their plot for final finishing.
The combined family effort and their attention to detail and ingenuity did not go unnoticed by the judges. At 2.45pm Chris and I surveyed each plot in turn and made our decisions…it was unanimous. We took to the stage to announce and present to the winners the 2009 Golden Spade award. The trophy, a golden spade dug into a sod of grass was awarded to the family of Plot 27.
Following the winners’ proclamation, the miniature gardens were opened up for further public competition and scrutiny. Would the public agree with the judges’ choice? These private spaces were opened into the broader public space, where both participants and viewers had an opportunity to explore new conceptual and geographical territories. This is not unlike garden festivals such as the Chelsea Flower Show where the public view cheek by jowl traditional and experimental gardens.
The miniature gardens drew such public interest that our hosts Home Live Art decided it would be a good idea if the plots were the last items to be taken down.
…And this is where I began.
Written by NUG member Simon Withers.
This article originally appeared on the, 'Nottingham Visual Arts' website (2009).
Sandplay Therapy Rooms
During the development of the Nu Urban Gardeners I undertook various types of research on material. Some of which over a period of time could become more integrated into NUG practice...Something that may well hold an Ex-post-Facto influence on NUG practice are Sandplay Therapy Rooms.
Sandplay is a ‘hands on’ psychological work and is generally applied within a free and protected space. The client creates a concrete manifestation from his or her imagination using sand, water and miniature objects. Sandplay aids the client’s internal symbolic world and with sufficient time and understanding sandplay taps into the layers of the pre-verbal unconscious mind and brings it into the conscious world. What is of interest is here the use of sandplay that facilitates and stimulates the creative process.
Dora Kaiff developed Jungian-based sandplay therapy out of her work with Margaret Lowenfeld (British psychiatrist). Sandplay will perhaps play a role within NUG gardening in the future and likewise the NUGs may well develop a more clear understanding of sandplay in both theory and practice.
