On the Necessity of Gardening: An ABC of Art, Botany and Cultivation, Laurie Cluitmans (ed.)

For centuries, the garden has been considered a mirror of society, a microcosm, in which the broader relationships between nature and culture are reflected on a small scale. From this long cultural tradition also comes a call for a new awareness of our relationship with the earth.

On the Necessity of Gardening tells the story of the garden as a source of inspiration, reflection and criticism. Throughout the ages, artists, writers, poets and thinkers have described, depicted and designed the garden in various ways. In medieval art, the garden was a reflection of paradise, a place of harmony and fertility, protected from worldly troubles.

However, the garden is not just a neutral place and intended exclusively for personal pastime, it is a place where the world manifests itself and where the relationship between culture and nature is expressed. In the eighteenth century, the garden became a symbol of worldly power and politics. The Anthropocene, the era in which humans completely dominate nature, with disastrous consequences, forces us to radically reconsider the role we have assigned to nature in recent decades.

There is renewed interest in the theme of the garden among contemporary makers. It is not a romantic desire that drives them, but rather a call for a new awareness of our relationship with the earth, by connecting different fields of work in landscape, art and culture. Through many different essays and an extensive abecedarium with terms such as botanomania, capitalocene, guerrilla gardening, queer ecology and zen garden, On the Necessity of Gardening reflects on the garden as a metaphor for society.

Published by Valiz
Softcover
240 pages
320 x 240 mm
ISBN 9789493246003