In preparation for the effort that will go into the VRD Gardens piece – I’m increasingly against the ‘et in arcadia ego’ working title (too pretentious even for me) – I’ve been working on a small world I use as a test bed for learning about Unity and 3ds Max modelling. I found that the frustration involved in working with the technology is best spent on things that aren’t as significant, if it fails and I lose it all I feel less upset.
miro world map
This video takes a brief walk through ‘miro_world’ in it’s current state.
I’ve continued to research for the VRD gardens project, which has now been acknowledged as eligible for funding by ACE (this only means they will now consider it and, it being a resubmission, I would have been surprised if they hadn’t), and I came across the online exhibition at the Garden Museum – gardenmuseum.org.uk
“I walk in this garden holding the hands of dead friends…” i
This is the start of a poem in one of Derek Jarman’s garden notebooks. This page, and a few others are reproduced on the Garden Museum website as part of the first exhibition dedicated to his garden at prospect college. There is a nice reading by Julian Sands heading this page.
When you carry your past with you as any conscious creature must it helps to have a place to lay it down. This is what Jarman did with prospect cottage, creating a space defined by the horizon geographically and physcologically, allowing patches of memory and the ideas they spawn to seed and grow as they could in the shingle.
There is nothing for me as dramatic as Jarman’s motivation but the desire to contain an essence of oneself in a space is palpably universal. The garden serves of course as itself and has a personality that dominates with its presence when you are present. It causes you to contemplate whether you wish to or not and visit and revisit aspects of yourself. Whether working or relaxing the space is redolent with shadows cast by your thoughts and memories.
i Garden Museum. (2020). Derek Jarman’s Sketchbooks. [online] Available at: https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/jarmansgarden/derek-jarmans-sketchbooks/ [Accessed 28 Nov. 2020].
