Gardens condense world views that balance environmental and human agency reflective of a given age and society. Some were designed to reflect an imperious order, others to display a playful mindfulness, while some chose to embrace the monstrous, the sublime, and the wasteland. A certain art is required to organize and manage the actors of enclosed gardens: plants, flowers, trees, but also rocks, water, and wind, in a sculptural design that might involve sight, smell, touch, sound, and sometimes taste. On the one hand, students are introduced to a history of garden design, paying particular attention to cosmological visions and social contexts through case studies in Europe, Asia, and Africa. In parallel, the course presents a range of contemporary artistic interventions with garden spaces and histories, in an age of increasing environmental imbalance and planetary awareness, in which the decision to garden can offer a path to nurture an active engagement with the present.
As part of the Gardens and Art course, students could engage with the multifaceted history of gardens with a series of on-site visits in Rome as part of the course’s academic travel component. Visits included the botanic garden, a tour of the Vatican gardens, the Villa Hadriana and the waterworks at the Villa d’Este in Tivoli, and the fantasy world of Bomarzo.
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"Gardens are the canvas where nature and human creativity converge."
Prof. Gabriel Gee