Spring in the Garden

Working with your hands in the soil is, perhaps quietly but certainly, to work on something within yourself. Gardening offers a different way of experiencing nature: slower, more attentive, shaped by repetition and rhythm. In this Art Room, we celebrate the garden in all its forms – the scent of earth, the hum of bees, birds in the early morning, flowers slowly opening. And the moments that follow: resting with a book in the rays of the sun, or retreating to a shaded corner.

‘The garden is a metaphor for human life, always changing and cyclical, says landscape architect Piet Oudolf in his interview in See All This #30. We have our springtimes, when we are growing up; high summers, when we are in the midst of life; late summers, when we start to look back, there’s a chill in the air and we feel the time approaching to say goodbye. Then our autumns and winters. We are forced to think about the past. The glory fades from the garden; things start to decay. We humans experience the cycle from birth to death only once; in the garden, it’s an annual event. Unlike us, gardens are reborn time and again. But decay also produces life. Cobwebs, mists, insects.’

In this Art Room you will find, among other things, limited-edition pottery by Willem Zwiers; ceramics and postcards by David Shrigley; gardening tools by Piet Oudolf; seeds from our own experimental garden; dahlia bulbs by PuurBio; honey from Piedmont; linen textiles by Libeco; books on nature; a workshop in linen-making (from seed to spun flax); and more to help your garden – and you – grow and flourish.