Garden Conversations

Garden Conversations (2008) explores the socio-cultural layers embedded within Pines Garden in St. Margaret’s Bay in Kent. The three part sound piece was developed over a period several months and consists of edited interviews of people working, using or being involved in some other way with the garden. Pines Garden is a small and unique public garden established in the 1970s by the philanthropic Gould family and its Bay Trust has taken the initial garden development further by committing to implementing and exploring sustainable solutions for lessening its environmental impact.

The piece as such could be described as a social geographical rendering of the site and explores Pines Garden through three interlinked themes - 'Combining past and vision', 'Sustainability and bone of contention', 'First impressions and usage of the garden'.

Garden conversations was part of Paradise Revealed curated by Christine Gist. It was a two site exhibition project taking place at Pines Garden in St. Margaret’s Bay and in the car park at Charlton Shopping Centre in Dover.

For the site in the car park, I developed a piece focusing on the flora of Dover. For this I researched the plant distribution as recorded for postcode CT15 which led me to the declining perennial native species ‘Salvia Pratensis’ commonly known as Meadow Cleary. To increase this plant’s presence in Dover, I offered free seed samples for the visitors to take away.

The project was accompanied by a blog published on a-n: http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/398087