Hortus Conclusus

Orange Days, New Holland, St Petersburg, Russia 2013.
Site-specific installation: 5 x 12 x 1,5 m. Wooden construction, brick panels, paint, chestnut and tilia trees.

Hortus Conclusus (Latin for “enclosed garden”) is a metaphor for freedom and social space. The garden’s presence, establishes a dialogue with the gallery space underneath and what it contains in order to create a tension between the accessible and the closed, what can be experienced and what remains unattainable to our life and knowledge, a heterotopic space. This secret and mysterious space reconnects with the history of New Holland, reminds us its past condition: it’s located at the very heart of the city and yet it’s isolated from the people. Bricks and trees form the two basic components of the work. The bricks refer to the Cabin of Peter the Great, the first house built in Saint Petersburg and expressly made with bricks, so that people would be persuaded of his great idea to build a real city, a city made out of stones. The trees pertain to paradise, a garden that is also enclosed and inaccessible.

Orange Days at New Holland was curated by Alessandra Prandin.