THE MODERN MINT BLOG
What do I do with this space? A question clients often ask us, a question we often ask ourselves.
So it became the title of our new talk for winter 2014/2015… but to answer this question, we have realised, is a huge undertaking.
Exploring potential answers left us delving deeper and deeper into new ideas, unpacking thoughts and contemplating the words of garden philosophers, and feeling ever more entangled by the question we had set out to explore. How could such a simple question become so complex? Or as Clarice Lispector puts it in The Passion According to G.H.:
“I don’t know what to do with the horrifying freedom that can destroy me.”
And doesn’t that sum it up well – what do I do with this space? Really, you can do anything.
The art or science or whatever you want to call it is left to you, the way you think and feel and what you know and don’t know… and of course, the ‘don’t-knows’ you are willing to explore.
The talk takes in the work of people from all over the world – starting in Japan, then ending in a dream garden via Scandinavia, Spain, Uruguay, Sheffield and the kitchen of a Parisian chef. It also quotes Motehr Teresa and Jack Gilbert, just to keep the audience on its toes!
It is a fascinating question we have set ourselves and we have had a riot exploring potential answers. Please do come along to the premiere of this new garden talk on Wednesday in Chignall, 7.30pm start.
You can find all the details here on our Talks page.
We hope to see you soon, to share this discussion with us as we ask the question:
Box Hill – Novella by Adam Mars-Jones
I picked this book up back in 2020 because of the title – Box Hill – fabulous, I thought, a book about boxwood. I’ll peruse this for its respective thoughts on the plant I clip most when I make topiary. I didn’t read the blurb on the back. Didn’t know the author (although I knew the publisher, Fitzcarraldo Editions, as I love many of the essays they have published… so trusted the author would be worth spending time with.) By page 2 I realised this novel wasn’t quite what I had expected. I started the book at 10pm, after getting …
The Henderson, Topiary Art Interview on Instagram
In a suit… eek! View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Henderson (@thehenderson_hk)
Topiary, The Art Garden at The Henderson
The Art Garden at The Henderson in Hong-Kong has now opened to the public. I joined the project last March, to work with Gillespies Landscape Architects on the topiary that had been designed for the Art Garden, which gives a calm, green space below the extraordinary Henderson skyscraper designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. The garden has been designed with butterflies in mind, so lots of nectar plants, and has other art projects and installations within its footprint. The history of the site is interesting too – it was originally the first cricket ground in Hong-Kong! So still a green space….! …