An Enclosed Garden, 2021, incarnates Homer’s Penelope, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, and the Virgin Mary as hortus conclusus ('enclosed garden’), to invoke them as emblems of contemplation and wisdom. The piece irreverently evokes monastic herbaria and medieval paintings. Many of the actions performed are reversed or undone, echoing Penelope unpicking her weaving each night. This doing, undoing and re-doing reflects our uncertain present moment. But by being situated in cultivated sanctuaries for healing and transformation, the actions suggest an affinity with Julian’s description of salvation as an ‘again-making’. The garden is a space in which to be regrown.
The work was commissioned for Margate NOW: Sunken Ecologies, curated by Anna Colin. A review by Ellen Mara De Wachter for Art Monthly can be found here.