The Garden Project, Arif Satar and Audrey Fernandes-Satar

The Garden project, funded in the September 2007 Catalyst round, emerged from a studio enquiry by artists Audrey Fernandes-Satar and Arif Satar.

 Exhibition at the Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery

Arif and Audrey had been particularly interested in looking at the spaces we occupy, our sense of  belonging and what we have brought with us in an Australian context. After an invitation from the Faculty of Arts of the Maharaja Sayajirao (MS) University in Vadodora, India, the enquiry has gone international.

The garden in this project has become an important space where cultural iconography is visually  materialised. The notion of the garden is explored - not in a literal sense, but in an expansive metaphysical way - accessing the garden to express the personal rather than the botanical.

In June 2008, The Garden Project exhibited at the Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery, Fremantle and in August at the MS University Gallery in Vadodora, India. Community members from Fremantle to Delhi participated in the research, development, creation and presentation of the garden artworks. The project evolved by considering the residential garden landscapes of community members in Fremantle and Section C of Defence Colony in Delhi, India - a residential area in Delhi. Workshops were run in their studio and in people's homes. Each community member produced a 'herbaria' book - a journal of sorts, documenting the participant's engagement with their space.

A digital diary was produced in collaboration with the project, portraying the 'voices' of people and the 'living entities' that inhabit these gardens. From this digital diary a stop motion animation artwork was produced, that detailed the people involved, their choice of garden, the seeds they've planted, what they inherited and what's new in the garden.

The project is continuing on from India to the UK in 2009. A similar artists in residence and exhibition is to be held at Kew Gardens in London.

This was a Catalyst funded project in 2008.

Take me back to Catalyst funding.