Hildesheim’s installation defies the traditional definition of a garden: one cannot stroll through it, and it can only be observed through the museum’s glass window. In contrast to permanent, natural gardens, this nomadic, manmade garden is one in which organic components appear as infiltrators from a different system. This creation, which we can neither smell nor touch, may thus serve as a metaphor for desire. Its location within a cultural institution, moreover, positions it as a model rather than as a concrete site – as a representation of a utopian space that is also a non-place.

Suspended between existence and non-existence, this garden is at once material and abstract, present and absent. This state of dissonance may be taken to echo a range of social, political, and cultural conflicts that partake of Israeli reality.

Scientific consultant: Dr. Yoav Evron

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