Work: Gardening 2025

‘Gardening’ is the final part of a trilogy of works that I have been working on over the past two years. The trilogy explores humanity’s relationship with the surrounding nature, illuminated from three different perspectives.

The first series in the trilogy, ‘If Plants Could Speak’ from 2023, was based on research into plant intelligence and was, to some extent, a dystopian portrayal of a human-made culture in decay, where the plant kingdom had taken over. My intention with the series was to question our relationship with nature and the biodiversity challenges we are currently facing, while also showing the beauty in the decay we leave behind when nature is allowed to take over.

The second part of the trilogy, ‘Enclosed Garden’ from 2024, was inspired by the enclosed garden, which according to Christian tradition refers to the pure and untouched. The series was an exploration of nature as a source of self-understanding and self-awareness, but rather than pointing to the pure and unattainable, it highlighted the ungraceful and the unfree—what limits life from unfolding.

In light of the cultivation and standardization to which nature is continually subjected, the series was a celebration of diversity in all living things and a call to release our limited assumptions.

‘Gardening’ is the third and final part of the trilogy and is based on the relationship between nature and culture. The works were created as an analogy between modern technology and the bonsai tree.

Both are human-controlled processes which, in my view, can to some extent be equated—because in both cases, something is pushed to its extreme in an ongoing attempt to perfect or optimize. The works revolve around a sense of alienation, due to the major changes our world is currently undergoing, and how our constant pursuit of improvement and perfection can, in some ways, distance us from ourselves and the nature around us.

However, there is also an inherent hope and belief in the future in these works. A belief that we humans are capable of creating positive change in the world—also through the very development that technology contributes to. I believe we can learn a great deal from the knowledge we now have about nature and the natural processes taking place, and with this series I wish to emphasize that we still have the opportunity to create beautiful changes in the world.