1/25/2024 0 Comments Picturesque farmAlthough it is now synonymous with the Caribbean, it was introduced there as it was an easy-to-grow food for enslaved workforces. Kincaid is aware that many of the plants she was most familiar with growing up in Antigua were not actually native to that country, breadfruit being a prime example. There are a lot of fashions around plants but often their cultural history can become neglected or eradicated along the way," says Stappmans. "She's addressing this thing that is slowly seeping into public consciousness. A history that, it is all too easy to forget, is frequently tied up with colonialism, cultural appropriation and displacement. It is undeniably beautiful, but Kincaid frequently uses it as inspiration to explore the hidden ugliness of global horticultural history. The garden of Antiguan-American novelist, academic and garden writer Jamaica Kincaid is not currently open to the public, although her admirers are able to catch glimpses of its verdant lusciousness on her Instagram account. A fund-raising campaign by the British Art Fund in 2020 ensured that the cottage and garden would be preserved, and it is now possible to visit by prior appointment. Pieces of driftwood and rusty metal form an idiosyncratic sculptural display at the rear of the cottage, adding to the sense of the garden as artwork.Īfter Jarman's death in 1994, the garden was cared for by Collins until his own death in 2018. These – together with lavender cotton, foxglove, thistle, lathyrus and flax – are what he grew among the shingle that surrounds the cottage, helped, it has to be acknowledged, by layers of compost buried beneath the surface. He found that plants such as seakale, gorse and poppies thrived there. But then he began to look for local species that had learned to endure the coastal winds and lack of rain. Jarman's attempts to grow roses in the barren, stony soil failed miserably. Jarman's desire to create a garden following the diagnosis, and on such unpromising land, has come to be seen as a determination to create life in the face of death. He bought the property and moved in, but tragically in December of the same year he was diagnosed with HIV. Despite it being in the shadow of a nuclear power station and subjected to a hostile climate all year-round, Jarman was besotted. Stopping off at Dungeness in Kent, together with his partner Keith Collins and the actress Tilda Swinton, he came across Prospect Cottage, a small fisherman's hut that happened to be up for sale. In 1986, the artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman was touring Southern England filming footage for an experimental film that would be titled The Garden. So important was his work that Sítio Roberto Burle Marx is now preserved as a Unesco World Heritage site. During his lifetime, he and his team collected and cultivated more than 3,500 plants, many of which he discovered himself. "He was really interested in primary research about the plants, and understanding what environment they would need to thrive, which plant went with which and how to propagate them and how to turn them into these amazing garden artworks," says Viviane Stappmanns, co-author of the book that accompanies the exhibition.Īt Sítio Santo, he was able to explore the colour combinations, shapes, textures, contrasts and perspectives that could be created with native plants before integrating them into his designs. In 1949, he and his brother bought Sítio Santo Antônio da Bica, a farm on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, which would become a testing ground for his botanical and artistic research. He made it his mission to correct this anomaly, becoming an ardent defender of biodiversity in the process. Frequently referring to the experience as an "awakening", he realised that the European-influenced gardens back home were virtually devoid of native species. He is responsible for modernising Brazilian garden design but also made a major contribution to the protection of the rainforest with his research into native flora.ĭespite being born and raised in Brazil, Burle Marx's first encounter with plants from the Amazon rainforest was at the Botanical Gardens in Dahlem, during a year and a half he spent in Berlin in the late 1920s. Roberto Burle Marx was one of the great landscape artists of the 20th Century. S í tio Roberto Burle Marx, Rio de Janeiro
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