Vivian Ge

Reconnect // Here's the Garden

The transition from traditional to modern society has brought with it the hard-to-confess problem of loneliness. The arrival of Covid-19 has exacerbated this as public health restrictions aggravate urban isolation and mental illness.

So how do we connect with others, particularly if we don’t find speaking easy?

‘Here is the Garden’ project took inspiration from the role of gardens as a healing space and barrier. The work patrols the space between people and the natural landscape, conducting an investigation into closeness and distance, intimacy and estrangement.

The origin of the word ‘Garden’ comes from the Middle English, gardyn, and the high German, gart, meaning “enclosure.” The word implies that a garden is a place with edges and boundaries. But alongside the cultural hallmarks of innocence, tranquillity and beauty, the garden is also a place for pleasure and protection. Vivian’s intention is to bring the garden outside inside and to cultivate a space for collective healing in the city— a tactile and visual garden, as the artistic and poetic resistance of life to the fragmentation of society and the rigidity of science and technology.