FINE ARTS

Hlynur Snær Andrason – Chance Garden

by Hlynur Snær Andrason

A small garden is displayed in a hard case. Last autumn, three containers of fertile soil were dug in various construction sites around Lausanne. This summer, the sites had changed. One container was lost, one was destroyed and another contained various plants. Inside there was a small cross section of the most common plants in the area, like a snapshot of the local area. These are plants that would normally classify as weeds – flowers you would find in the parking lot of botanical gardens. Yet these plants had found the conditions they needed within the container. They were brought inside, replanted and preserved using the same forces humans first learned to tame: shelter, light and nutrition. What would you catch in your garden?