21.02 – Outside of the
fern greenhouse: Yann Sérandour – unable to attend in person – made the piece Cloudy with a Chance of a Ray of Sunlight,
in which mirrors are given to those in attendance to cast a beam of light over
a shadowy spot. More latecomers drop in.
21.07 – Trees: Maarten
van Bodegraven, one of the managers of the VU Hortus, is explaining that the
site is forty-seven years old, three years from meriting the status of a
monument.
21.19 – By the
waterside: Jacob Korczynski couldn’t make it to the evening either. He chose a
text called Bright and Dark, from a
film by Ellie Epp, which was read out aloud by Tanja Baudoin.
the way a hand on an arm is
a contact that allows a flow so bright so soft it must be fluid love**
21.22 – Trees/perennial
plants: Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky's magical photograms of different shades and
shapes of leaves are popping up at different locations.
21.28 - Cactus
greenhouse: Marcel van den Berg is reciting his poem 'Nyctalope'.
21.35 – Subtropical
container plants: Pause. A good moment to check out the ceramic pot made by
Frédérique Bergholtz and Maria Pask.
22.09 – Australian
plants and Japanese bonsai: Nora Turato spitting her way through the New Power
Generation.
Whoman!
Fall
of men in tux
too
many brain lux
still
acting like duck
more
yuck than man driving trucks
in
times of constant flux
klux
man
of flux
klux
ku
klan
co
co
you
are a coo coo
if
i may say the truth what you do
is
way too goo
screw
u
phew***
22.24 – Subtropical
container plants: Moosje Goosen gives us a copy of the press release announcing
Edward Steichen's exhibition of Delphiniums at the MoMA in June 1936. Naturally,
a couple of delphinium flowers were serving as the backdrop.
To avoid
confusion, it should be noted that the actual delphiniums will be shown at the
Museum -- not paintings of photographs of them. It will be a 'personal
appearance' of the flowers themselves.****
22.32 – On a small hill
among flowers: Rory Pilgrim's Little
Reflections were big.
Maybe we
won't see the changes happen in our lifetime. It keeps growing. Gardens to
nurture our dreams and our voices.
22.44 – Chinese
penjing: Nathalie Bruys presents a silver and a golden pitchfork resonating the
Earth, the Sun and the Moon. They create a full-blossomed tone, the perfect
score to the evening.
22.54 – Tree:
Vivian Ziherl has brought a Banksia pod and reads the poem The Young Girl
Wanda by Oodgeroo Noonuccal. This species of Banksia germinates when burnt
by a bushfire. The force of the fire breaks the seeds open, replacing the
plants that have been destroyed.
'I love all young
things,
The young dawn,
not the grey day dying,
The white of
daybreak on awaking waters.
I love happy
things,'
said the young
girl Wanda.*****
23.01 – Great tropical
greenhouse: Arnisa Zeqo and Laurie Cluitmans are re-enacting Jane Bowles' play Two Serious Ladies.
Into the
winds and sunshine or into the winds and moonrise******
It is hard to remain
serious when a couple of big bugs appear onstage.
23.12 – Subtropical
container plants: Pause. Time for a Tequila Sunrise by Susan Gibb.
23.44 – Formal garden:
Agnieszka Polska projecting a movie consisting of a super close zoom of a cover
of America magazine – a very popular
publication in Poland (her country of birth) in the 1950s.
23.50 – Chinese penjing:
Sands Murray-Wassink touching our olfactory system and warping us back in time
with samples of Vent Vert, a perfume created in 1945 by Germaine Cellier, the
first female nose for the House of Balmain. The perfume contained an overdose
of galbanum, and is universally seen as the first unisex perfume.
Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender. *******
This is the evening at
its fullest as the whole crowd sits together in a circle, a circle of
conspiracy.
00.02 – Evergreen
ferns: Katja Mater’s custom-made projector splits light with a prism in the six
colours of the spectrum. It’s pitch dark by now and different compositions of
light beams playfully touch the screen, set up in the lush greens.
00.11– Perennial plants:
Kyle Tryhorn beaming his photographic work Keeper
of the Psychic Garden onto a bush. Digital leaves touch upon physical
leaves.
00.19 – Great tropical
greenhouse: Irene Kopelman talks about her fascination for botanical gardens
and their inspiration for her personal practice. Some people are starting to
linger in different parts of the garden.
00.36 – Great tropical
greenhouse: Sara van der Heide is premiering part of her work Mother Earth Breathing. While Sara
places herself lying on the ground, a projection starts to play just above her:
a mesmerizing movie where a triangle, a square and a circle slowly morph to new
colours and dimensions. While for twelve minutes the breathing of her own body
(and ours as well) is the only perceptible movement, the projected shapes
almost become tangible and start to float in space. It is a beautiful closure
to a sacred night.
00.53: The End.
At
times we were lost in translation. Babylon Sisters moving through different time zones (literally but also symbolically as the contributions spanned over a
century worth of anecdotes). A work in progress, where the twittering of the
birds and the soft-spoken, and at times fiery, voices of the participants were
overshadowed by helicopter noises from the VU hospital and the sounds of racing
cars.
One
cannot exclude daily reality, even in the most idyllic setting. But that didn’t
matter, quite on the contrary. As is the intention of Sara: offering a new
option, a paradigm shift of the unlimited growth of our current capitalist
system and a different experience of being in time. Time to be together, and to
celebrate. And ultimately, to dance.
NOTES
*Marlow
Moss, Riet Wijnen, 2013
** Bright
and Dark, Ellie Epp, 1995-1996
***Yoko
Ono Voice Box, Nora Turato, 2013
**** MoMA press release of 'Steichen
Delphiniums', 1936
***** The
Young Girl Wanda, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, 1992
****** Two
Serious Ladies, Jane Bowles, 1943
****** In
Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose, Alice Walker, 1983