Ruderal Acts, Gardening Beyond the Wall [2021]
Ruderal Acts, Gardening Beyond the Wall aims to challenge the image of the garden as an enclosed system within which man controls the natural world, imagining a more open and indeterminate space informed by mutual care and cohabitation. Through careful observation, documentation, and presentation, the project suggests a different kind of garden formed in the left-behind urban and rural sites, ruins, and transitional places. The project takes the abandoned and walled-off Rayy Cement Factory—a site located in the southeast part of Tehran, Iran—as a starting point for an alternative idea of a garden. One that benefits from blurred boundaries is shaped by the organic growth of ruderal species and cultivated by often unintended events: the leakage of a pipe, shading provided by a brick wall, or flora migration from agricultural activities. Carrying on this vision through multiple strategies, Gardening Beyond the Wall develops over time, unlike acts in a play, using the city of Tehran as its stage and its citizens as its actors, custodians, and ultimately gardeners.
Collaborators:
Amin Yousefi - Photographer
Nafiseh Samadi - Botanist
Hadi Zand - Photojournalist
Michela Zoppi - Graphic designer