Single Channel HD Video, 5:00 Min.
The Wild Garden takes its name from a horticultural book from the 1800’s. Advocating for more naturalistic plantings in garden settings, the author, William Robinson notes “how much more enjoyable such places would be, as at almost every step there would be something fresh to attract notice and gratify the eye” if instead of traditional English garden shrubs, one used bold plants such as Japanese Knotweed. In the video, a woman on a stroll is enraptured by the hyperbolic outcome of such designs—both terrifying and beautiful.*
by Jean Brennan
Percussion by Teddy Lawrence
Videography by Jorge Cousineau
Filmed in an enormous patch of Japanese Knotweed in Biddeford Maine during an artist residency at @subcircleresidency August 2021
Edited March 2022
Installation shot from the group show ‘Fragile Rainbow: Traversing Habitats’ at the WAH (Williamsburg Art and Historical) Gallery, May 2022.
* Today, Knotweed is one of the most hated non-native plants in the U.S. and Europe for the damage it can cause to an ecosystem crowding out other plants and establishing itself in patches up to the size of a football field like this one in Maine. And yet it offers potential benefits as well—see the project Nectar distributed through FRUIT&ROT.