The Garden Museum - Winter

In the Winter Season 2018, three Tuesday evening events focused on the infrastructure of the landscape: Right of Way, Critical Infrastructure and Taxonomy of Language.

A right of way is fundamental to how we appreciate, stretch out and journey across the landscape on ancient routes and bye-ways, following well-trodden paths and desire lines. Our speakers were: Sarah Blee, artist and independent freelance photographer; Liza Fior, founder of muf architecture/art. Tereza Stehlikova, artist working in the medium of moving image and performance, screened her documentary Worm Wood.

Critical infrastructure is that which is deemed critical to the survival of civilisation; democracy and topsoil. Rapidly we need to relearn what was natural to our ancestors, better appreciate the web of life, how everything hangs together in the ‘balanced nature of nature’. Our speakers were: Orlando Gibbons, structural engineer and sustainability consultant at Arup; Rob Mackenzie, Professor of Atmospheric at the University of Birmingham; Jonathan Spencer, Head of Planning & Environment for Forest Enterprise England. Tereza Stehlikova screened Nameless Wood.

Language is our complex system of communication, implied and explicit. We categorise, encode, and abbreviate in direct and ambiguous styles in a spectrum of mini language forms that can inspire, inform, or exclude. Language is human expression and the foundation of the learning process. Our speakers were: Steven Fowler, writer, artist and J & L Gibbons’ Poet in Residence; Dominic Lippa, designer, partner at Pentagram London. Tereza Stehlikova screened Trieste.