Wednesday, August 10, 2011

its been a while...

...since I have posted. I think it is mainly because I have discovered Pinterest. I have been pinning up a storm. 


What have I been working on, seen, done?


I saw a really inspiring lecture on June 29th by an artist/landscape designer named Thilo Folkerts. He is based in Berlin and was speaking at Toronto's Design Exchange about his work in general and about a project at the Jardin de la Connaissance in Metis, Quebec (recreated in the Design Exchange gallery).
 

Jardin de la Connaissance

Festival International de jardins
Métis (Quebec/CA), 2010
with Rodney Latourelle, Berlin

I clipped the image from Folkerts website where we read that the project is meant to invoke "the mythic relation between knowledge and nature integral to the concept of ‘paradise’" He and Latourelle also cultivate mushrooms on the piece to aid in the decomposition. 

 The work is really beautiful and poignant. I hope to be able to visit the Jardin de la Connaissance while the project is on view. 


He showed slides of influences such as Peter Walker's Minimalist's Gardens Without Walls, Robert Smithson, Jackson Pollack, Roberto Burle Marx, Dieter Kienast, and Tobias Rehberger and images of his own projects which lie somewhere between art and design.


Folkerts' work is surprising, poignant, and joyful. Take a look at his website where you will find more beautiful works as the drawing below.