{"id":4961,"date":"2017-03-13T14:56:40","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T14:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.siteandinsight.com\/?p=4961"},"modified":"2017-03-13T14:56:40","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T14:56:40","slug":"experimenting-landscapes-a-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/experimenting-landscapes-a-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Experimenting Landscapes: A Book Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Experimenting Landscapes: Testing the Limits of the Garden<\/em> is the newest book about the International Garden Festival at M\u00e9tis, Qu\u00e9bec. Full of helpful insights from \u00a0the author\u00a0Emily Waugh, the book presents photos and essays analyzing\u00a0some\u00a0of the Festival’s experimental gardens. Focusing on a selection of gardens from the last ten years, the book suggests\u00a0five categories or methods of investigation that help readers position the gardens within a larger context.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"This

This cover photo shows Courtesy of Nature,<\/strong> by Johan Selbing and Anouk Vogel. It is one of my favourite installations in recent years.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Waugh’s categories ask us to consider how some\u00a0gardens \u00ab\u00a0Disaggregate and Re-present\u00a0\u00bb or\u00a0\u00ab\u00a0Focus Within Frames\u00a0\u00bb to help us see things we might otherwise miss; how \u00ab\u00a0Altered Viewpoints\u00a0\u00bb and \u00ab\u00a0Unexpected Materials and Formats\u00a0\u00bb \u00a0give new perspectives and how \u00ab\u00a0Landscape as a Living Experience\u00a0\u00bb brings richer awareness.<\/p>\n

True to its title, the gardens selected stretch the definition of garden and test its limits. And all to the good, in my opinion.<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0Disaggregate and Re-Present\u00a0\u00bb examines\u00a0gardens that help us see the details — the trees within the forest, as it were — by breaking a\u00a0big picture into its component parts. One of the most successful is Tiny Taxonomies<\/strong> by Rosetta Elkins, where ordinary plants that form the floor of a boreal forest are re-presented in mirrored cylinders of different heights.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Tiny

Tiny Taxonomies<\/strong> by Rosetta Elkins. By removing plants from their original context, Elkins helps us see them as something special, non-commercial species with their own beauty.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0Focusing within Frames\u00a0\u00bb is a familiar concept in garden design. Openings in hedges, tall trees at key locations, all\u00e9es that lead our eyes to a special object or view — these tricks have been used by gardeners for centuries. \u00a0At the International Garden Festival, though, the idea is expanded beyond the familiar. A variety of types of frames draw our attention to our surroundings, to views or objects that are so familiar we no longer see them. One of the featured installations is the forest scene\u00a0presented on the book’s cover, a project by Johan Selbing and Anouk Vogel with the beautifully appropriate name, \u00a0Courtesy of Nature<\/strong>. Ordinary trees and ferns\u00a0become almost sacred by virtue of the building that surrounds them, and inside the pristine enclosure we engage with these familiar landscape elements in new ways.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"This

This view of Courtesy of Nature shows the doorway to the gallery-like box that encloses a section of the existing forest. Setting the trees apart from the forest emphasizes the significance and beauty of the familiar.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Two\u00a0other gardens that I find particularly successful are included in this category. \u00a0One is the now permanent R\u00e9flexions color\u00e9es<\/strong> by Hal Ingberg, an installation that plays with perceptions in a way that engages everyone who sees it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Hal

Semi-reflective glass mirrors the surrounding forest and allows us to see ourselves reflected, separate from yet also a part of the forest. I have many, many\u00a0photos of this installation. Each time I see it, I have to take more because it looks different in every season and at every time of day. One of my favourite photos shows a tiny grandchild with her nose pressed against the glass, trying to figure out what\u00a0is inside and what is outside the frame.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Diane Balmori’s Making Circles in the Water<\/strong>\u00a0focuses our attention on the St. Lawrence River, a key feature of the landscape that had become\u00a0almost hidden behind a curtain of trees and plants. Small circular cones we can peer through and a series of frames we can\u00a0walk through limit\u00a0our sight to a\u00a0section of the larger scene. These two types of frames, combined with the title that recalls how throwing a rock into water makes rippling circles, connect us physically and emotionally to\u00a0the surroundings and remind us\u00a0of how we can affect it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Making

Making Circles in the Water<\/strong>, by Balmori Associates, engages visitors in multiple ways. I have seen children running through the frames, adults standing amid them and staring in both directions, people posing inside the frames to have\u00a0their photos taken. \u00a0The subtle colour gradations draw the eye through the frames to the water beyond.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

What I particularly appreciate about the experimental landscapes at the International Garden Festival is how they alter my views, both visually and mentally, of even the most familiar things. Tree Stands<\/strong> by relais Landschaftsarchitekten placed ladders in a grove of trees; anyone brave enough to climb a ladder\u00a0would see the forest from a new vantage point. Camouflage View<\/strong> by Arenda\/Lasch used angled mirrors to simultaneously hide and reveal the surroundings. While my photo may show\u00a0the view onto the St Lawrence River quite clearly, walking through the space was a different experience. With each step, the angled view changed, confusing and distorting\u00a0background and foreground in a way that made the surroundings impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n

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\"Camouflage

Camouflage View<\/strong> by Aranda\/Lasch. I saw this installation early in June, 2006, while plants were still in their pots.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ordinary materials used in unexpected ways can challenge our\u00a0expectations. \u00a0Round Up<\/strong> by Legge Lewis Legge shifted a grass lawn from horizontal to vertical, by way of\u00a0turf hills covered with\u00a0sod held in place\u00a0with packing straps.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Round

Round Up<\/strong> by Legge Lewis Legge. When I saw them, the hills were fairly uniform but as the season progressed, they changed shape, slumping and shifting as the grass grew longer.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The last of Waugh’s five categories presents the landscape as a living experience. Two of the most powerful\u00a0installations she covers in this section are Afterburn<\/strong>\u00a0by Civilian Projects, and This Rocks! Get Lost!<\/strong> by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates.<\/p>\n

Afterburn<\/strong> shows the destructive and regenerative power of fire. Charred posts suggest a landscape destroyed by fire which, although initially barren, will become alive again as pioneer species take root and grow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The

The smell of charred wood was strong on the day I visited. I loved the aesthetics of this installations, in particular the contrast of colours — the orange surveyor’s paint and the silvery shimmer of the scorched wood set off against\u00a0the bright blue sky above.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each entry that Waugh presents includes quotes from the garden designer that speak to intent. Michael Van Valkenburgh wanted to do a project \u00ab\u00a0where the power of landscape material was the whole idea.\u00a0\u00bb This Rocks! Get Lost!<\/strong> positions\u00a0five enormous chunks of Vermont marble in a woodland site. The raw\u00a0power of the stone drew me and every other visitor I saw into close contact with the stones.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"When

When I saw This Rocks! Get Lost!<\/strong> by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, I had\u00a0to rub my hand against\u00a0each piece, to sit and be quiet, to give myself time to feel the weight of the marble, a material more often seen in small\u00a0polished pieces.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Essays by international garden writers and designers add heft to Experimenting Landscapes<\/em>, making it much more than a picture book reviewing festival gardens from previous years. Both the author Emily Waugh and the Garden and Festival Director Alexander Reford\u00a0connect the festival to the garden’s beginnings, when Elsie Reford began what she called ‘adventuring’ with soils, planters and hybrid species. She tested the limits of her garden in a climate where she was on her own. As her great-grandson writes, \u00ab\u00a0with nobody to compare herself to, she could only be constrained by her own lack of imagination.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n

For me, that encapsulates the value\u00a0of seeing and engaging with experimental gardens. They help me ‘adventure.’ They push me to\u00a0fight\u00a0against\u00a0the limits\u00a0of my imagination, to \u00a0look, to see,, to comprehend. Even to imitate.<\/p>\n

Several years before I saw Round Up, I used grass vertically to create the Grass Snake at Glen Villa. The idea didn’t come all at once, it developed in a back and forth dialogue with my friend, the landscape architect Myke Hodgins. The initial impulse, though, came from an experimental garden I saw pictured in a book.<\/p>\n

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\"Snow

Snow hides the head\u00a0of the grass snake but emphasizes the curves of its\u00a0shaggy grass ‘skin.’ The apple remains out of reach, regardless of season.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Currently I\u00a0 am working on two projects that fall within Emily Waugh’s categories. In one I’m using unexpected materials and formats in a new way; in another I’m altering the viewpoint. Both, I hope, will not be constrained by a lack of imagination. Rather, in the process of creating them I hope they will open my eyes to new possibilities and new ways of seeing and understanding the environment I am a part of.<\/p>\n

What will my experiments do for others? Will they open eyes or close them? I know that many people find experimental gardens off-putting. They are Irritated by what they see, or dismissive. Or worst of all, they are left indifferent. While I regret these reactions, I understand them. Like many pieces of contemporary art, experimental and conceptual gardens aren’t always\u00a0easy to get your head around. They run counter to everyday\u00a0ideas about what gardens are. But I hope that instead of shutting their minds to\u00a0these gardens, people will give them\u00a0a second look. Perhaps even a third. \u00a0Waugh’s excellent book is a good place to begin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Experimenting Landscapes: Testing the Limits of the Garden is the newest book about the International Garden Festival at M\u00e9tis, Qu\u00e9bec. Full of helpful insights from \u00a0the author\u00a0Emily Waugh, the book presents photos and essays analyzing\u00a0some\u00a0of the Festival’s experimental gardens. Focusing on a selection of gardens from the last ten years, the book suggests\u00a0five categories or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,24,22],"tags":[675,676,677,121,678,679,680,366,313,681,682,683,684],"class_list":["post-4961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-design","category-reviews","tag-anouk-vogel","tag-arandalasch","tag-balmori-associates","tag-book-reviews","tag-civilian-projects","tag-emily-waugh","tag-experimenting-landscapes","tag-hal-ingberg","tag-international-garden-festival","tag-johan-selbing","tag-legge-lewis-legge","tag-michael-van-valkenbergh","tag-rosetta-elkins","category-34","category-24","category-22","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}