David Chalmers Alesworth

Febuary-March, Cantt. Lahore, Ganche, Baltistan

Uncategorized

Comments Closed


Share this post
Media_http1bpblogspot_xkifb
Carrots in the washing basket, 13 March 2010
I’ve been thinking about inserting carrots into this plastic washing basket since i got it about two years ago.It seems made for them. Though I hadn’t counted on its flexibility nor their weight. Then there’s the lack of symmetry in an average Pakistani carrot. These black carrots are amazing, they seem another whole species from their bland orange cousins. The bigger picture is a putting together of the product of industry and the produce of nature. Both are interventions of a sort, neither are “natural”. This goes beyond my anthology of plastics.
Media_http1bpblogspot_ehelr
Black and red carrots, 13 March 2010

Media_http4bpblogspot_eegkc
Black Carrot juice, 26th March 2010, Lahore

Media_http1bpblogspot_crrki

 Carrots in the clothes basket, 13th March 2010

 

Media_http4bpblogspot_whegf

 Mixed carrots and plastic

Media_http1bpblogspot_ahhua

 Black carrots and orange plastic, 13th March 2010

Media_http3bpblogspot_pbghs

The shoot

Media_http4bpblogspot_fgpgf

set-up with  Nikon D3

Media_http4bpblogspot_eahka

Dyed eggs for Naurose,

Media_http3bpblogspot_lhbin
Appo Jaffar, at Khaplu Palace, Baltistan 23rd March 2010

 

Media_http1bpblogspot_faeyj
Khaplu village from above, 23rd March 2010

 

Media_http4bpblogspot_jimwi
Khaplu high plateau in search of lawn-grass, 23rd March 2010

 

Media_http4bpblogspot_hfdgs
Panorama with Huna, Khaplu 23rd March 2010

 

Media_http1bpblogspot_cuofi
Black Peppercorn Haier top-loader, detergent free twin tub, 14th March 2010

 

R.A. Bazaar Bombings, Friday 12th March 2010
Media_http4bpblogspot_yvrhx

 

Media_http4bpblogspot_eeirc
Body parts, mobile phone advert, R.A. bazaar Bombings, Friday 12th March 2010

 

Media_http4bpblogspot_znkmb
Washing down R.A. Bazaar, bombings, 12th March 2010

 

Media_http4bpblogspot_hhemf
R.A. Bazaar bombings, 12th March 2010
Media_http2bpblogspot_eczgb
Just outside Skardu by road, 23rd March 2010

 

Media_http1bpblogspot_cvpqv
Cabbage White’s eating all my Ruccola, 26th March 2010

Read more

“Desi Unday” Bilal Gunj

Uncategorized

Comments Closed


Share this post
I went back to “Bilal Gunj” Lahore’s massive used car part market for a second sound sampling, a few days ago. This time with Huma’s 4 channel Zoom recorder.

In over an hour of walking the lanes I got reasonably varied ambient sound from the breakers, welders, paint-sprayers and a great many gas and kerosene burners heating food and tea. On this trip I realized there was a tremendous culture of food going on here.

Fish, tea, sweet-potatoes, chena, monpelli, carrot juice, egg-fried rice, subzi and dal, roti’s of every description and finally hot, boiled desi-unday. I’d almost given up on the eggs. I kept asking where the sellers were, because it was their presence selling these beautiful subtle-hued, small precious des-unday (local-eggs/free-range eggs) in the context of these ancient and smashed oily wrecks of cars and trucks that had given rise to the egg and engine photographs.

Suddenly they were there running through the lanes, two sellers I’d never seen before. They both carried padded bags to keep the boiled eggs warm, their cry was garam-desi-unday and I realized this would give a somewhat different spin on the photographs. They’d be read as engine heated eggs, not what I’d intended.

I’d intended the teeming living eggs as nature amongst the toxic waste of the man-made, the guts of the engines.

I produced a 12 minute mixed edit of the garam-unday criers and the ambient sounds on my stroll through the richly varied soundscape in the lanes of this market. Hazrat Data Ganj Bakhsh‘s shrine minarets can be heard throughout the work, a constant accompaniment at Bilal Gunj. This shrine to the patron saint of Lahore, lies right in front of the car market.

“966th URS Shareef is on 3 Feb 2010 Inshallah”
966 Urs Mubarak Of Hazrat Data Ganj Bakhsh Ali Hajveri Will Held On 19 Safar al Muzaffar And 4 February 2010 (Approx) At Data Darbar , Near Bhatti Gate, Lahore. Pakistan
Days Remaining In URS Hazrat Data Ganj Bakhsh

His birthday is being celebrated today which a holiday in most of Punjab.

(….haven’t been able to upload this clip as yet)

Read more

Art for “The Post-Colonial Garden as a Palimpsest”

Uncategorized

Comments Closed


Share this post

Media_http3bpblogspot_vmdju

Let me begin by saying that I love hand-knotted rugs, of all sorts and I do own a few.
These are not mine, well maybe a few are by now and some are with my friends. It was a day of viewing rugs, mostly Chobi’s (Zeigglers) here.

We’re moving house much is being discarded, here’s an old rug I almost threw away today.

Media_http4bpblogspot_nyyrs

…and part of another

Media_http1bpblogspot_lxfbh

Some details of the finer piece.

Media_http3bpblogspot_xzcvx

These are around 10 x 12 ft, very old, badly damaged hand-knotted rugs that I acquired in Karachi almost ten years ago. I had intended them to be used in work for many years after I gave up on them, as floor coverings.

Media_http3bpblogspot_bkbqg
Media_http1bpblogspot_lcpxt

The blue Persian is a much finer piece but totally threadbare, worn right down to the structural weft and weave of its base, from a distance it’s almost monochrome. They are both also full of dust despite several previous washings. The motifs are of course all plant and garden based. These rugs would seem a viable visual metaphor a cultural reading of “the garden”. Here it is played out as as paradise itself. A contained garden of fountains, bird song, fruit bearing trees within in an ordered orchard. An oasis of sorts.

Media_http3bpblogspot_vbiug

I decided to cut out the still intact central portion today, and have kept the borders to experiment on as well. I’m intending to somehow work into and onto these rugs. At present it seems to me that the only authentic way to do that is to actually stitch another layer right into their very fabric, perhaps this should read from both sides as in fact this threadbare one does. Now there is no hierarchy of front or back, its much the same.

Media_http1bpblogspot_ttafv

I will have to have to stitch the edges to prevent this one disintegrating. It felt sacrilegious to be cutting into this once magnificent rug but if I can use it in my work it will have another lease of life.

Media_http2bpblogspot_ghljp
Media_http2bpblogspot_ewvqh
Media_http1bpblogspot_vjdge

I’m thinking of stitching the ground plan for “Lawrence Gardens” a Lahori British Raj park, now Bagh-e-Jinnah or perhaps even the plan of parts of the “Palace of Versailles”, gardens, the parterre’s in particular. Right now I’m thinking of a gold thread for visibility but I’ll have to try things out.

They’ll need to be stabilized, stretched on frames, washed and dried, none as simple as it sounds.. Then I’ll have to find out what the issues of working in to the surface of these rugs is.
I think I’ll begin with some photoshoped treatments as mock-ups.

The rug represents a pre-colonized traditional cultural thread (forgive the pun) or does it? Their history in this region is not so pure or simple.

Media_http3bpblogspot_tnicr

William Glover’s new book “Making Lahore Modern” Constructing and imagining a colonial City, just arrived. Its only been a week or so since I ordered though Amazon’s express delivery cost me as much as the book itself!

Media_http3bpblogspot_fehli

“Flying Carpet”

A work by Berlin based Alex Fleming shown at Art Dubai a few years ago. I instantly recognized it as a work I should have, could have made! (don’t you hate it when that happens?) We became friends and I sent him an Afghani War rug subsequently.

Read more

Mochi Gate, Old City, Lahore 29th November 2009

Uncategorized

Comments Closed


Share this post
Over Bakra Eid in Lahore, November 2009, near Mochi Gate, Walled City.

Media_http2bpblogspot_sawav

Skinning a sheep, near Mochi Gate
(also see movie clip)

Media_http3bpblogspot_hmcwn

Sheep

Media_http2bpblogspot_ojdzi

Wiring and speakers

Media_http3bpblogspot_ugshc

BA English

Media_http2bpblogspot_uiowj

Nan Katai shop

Media_http2bpblogspot_canea

Nan Katai’s

Media_http3bpblogspot_uvwqr

Carolyn Guertin

Media_http4bpblogspot_umwwb

Bazaar life

Media_http2bpblogspot_nancu

Bazaar

Media_http4bpblogspot_bbkub

Cleaning Goats Heads

Media_http3bpblogspot_xitgf

Goats Heads

Media_http3bpblogspot_wudaj

Processing goat parts

Media_http1bpblogspot_ecvhq

also see the movie clip

Media_http2bpblogspot_wyuis

Dry Fruit Stall

Media_http2bpblogspot_ahqdk

Media_http1bpblogspot_oxjjo

Media_http1bpblogspot_cvhct

Carolyn Guertin

Media_http3bpblogspot_gwcgo

Brain Computers

Media_http2bpblogspot_kkvou

Brain Computers

Media_http1bpblogspot_mbbnc

Beautiful animals for Eid

Media_http4bpblogspot_ioids

Remains

Media_http3bpblogspot_usozi

Skins on a bike

Media_http3bpblogspot_iyger

Skins at the roadside

Read more

Modes of Enquiry

Uncategorized

Comments Closed


Share this post

Currently I am involved with:

Walking Lahore as psychogeographical derivé. Starting at the Ganda Nala on Zafar Ali Road, Gulberg.

Working with Lawrence Gardens, Bagh-e-Jinnah.
Had an initial walk through the park on an exceptionally drab smoggy day. Met with head mali Alam and his staff and borrowed plans of the park and other parks of Lahore.

The People’s Art and Historical Project.
A collaboration with Adnan Madani, Karachi/London.
We are working on several new versions of the People’s Art Historical Garden Centre Project, that was performed to good effect at the opening of Greynoise’s recent showing on 25th October 2009, entitled “Patrons of Oh My God, I can afford Art”.

Beginning work on my dissertation “The Post-Colonial Garden as a Palimpsest”.
Busy reading. Recently finished K. Helphand’s “Defiant Gardens”, much else to write up here.

<meta name=”Title” content=””> <meta name=”Keywords” content=””> <meta equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=utf-8″> <meta name=”ProgId” content=”Word.Document”> <meta name=”Generator” content=”Microsoft Word 2008″> <meta name=”Originator” content=”Microsoft Word 2008″> <link rel=”File-List” href=”file://localhost/Users/davidalesworth/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0clip_filelist.xml”> <link rel=”Edit-Time-Data” href=”file://localhost/Users/davidalesworth/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0clip_editdata.mso”> <style> </style>

MANUFACTURER OF ” ” ROAD BLOCKER ” ” in KARACHI LAHORE ISLAMABAD PAKISTAN , WE ALSO MADE TURNSTILE GATES & REMOTE CONTROLL GATES IN PAKISTAN -NOW WE CAN STOP A BOMBER TRUCK WHO IS TRYING ENTERING & BLOW THE WHOLE BUILDING FROM HIS TRUCK .

Media_http1bpblogspot_vxgfy

100 % MADE IN PAKISTAN , IMPORTED SYSTEMS ARE EXPENSIVE WE ARE DIRECT MANUFACTURER IN PAKISTAN , INSTALLATION , AFTER SALES & SERVICES IS EASY FOR ALL OVER PAKISTAN CUSTOMERS -EASY SMOOTH OPERATION OF OUR OWN MADE SYSTEM IS AVAILABLE AT HALF PRICE THEN IMPORTED SYSTEMS -WE ARE DIRECT MANUFACTURER OF FORCED FULLY HARD STOP” ” ROAD BLOCKER ” “WE ALSO MADE – TURNSTILE GATES & REMOTE CONTROLL GATES , IN PAKISTAN – SEE OUR OTHER ADDS HERE –

<o:p> </o:p>

NOW WE CAN STOP A BOMBER TRUCK WHO IS TRYING TO ENTERING & BLOW THE WHOLE BUILDING – WE CAN STOP THAT BASTARD –

OUR EQUIPMENT IS REALLY A LIFE SAVING EQUIPMENT -SAVE ASSETTS =SAVE PEOPLES LIVES -SAVE EGO -2 TYPES WE MANUFACTURED -A) MANUAL CONTROLLED -B) HYDRAULIC CONTROLLED -JUST 1 SECURITY GUARD IS ENOUGH TO CONTROLL THIS GATE -ONLY IMPORTANT BUILDING CHIEF SECURITY OFFICERS LETTER HEAD ENQUIRIES WILL BE ENTERTAINED -WE ARE THE ONLY 1 MANUFACTURER IN PAKISTAN & WE USE BEST SYSTEM TO EJECT & RELEASE THE SYSTEM –

Read more

Studio check-in 1st Nov. 2009.

Uncategorized

Comments Closed


Share this post

<meta name=”Title” content=””> <meta name=”Keywords” content=””> <meta equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=utf-8″> <meta name=”ProgId” content=”Word.Document”> <meta name=”Generator” content=”Microsoft Word 2008″> <meta name=”Originator” content=”Microsoft Word 2008″> <link rel=”File-List” href=”file://localhost/Users/davidalesworth/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0clip_filelist.xml”> <style> </style>

Some current thoughts and initiatives.<o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

<o:p>
</o:p>

Walking the ganda-nala’s of Lahore<o:p></o:p>

I have approached a potential collaborator for this venture and we are in the process of discussing it. The open storm drains in this massive city of 7+ million (1998 census figures) provide the only channeling of sewage from homes to its ultimate discharge in the now dead river Ravi. There are no treatments plants. However the ganda-nala’s also create ecological corridors through the city where plant and animal life is left fairly undisturbed. The current heightened tension in the city is making any walking venture deeply problematic, let alone undertaking a walk through a highly suspicious no-mans land. I hope to undertake an initial walk (and documentation) within a few weeks. <o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

<o:p>
</o:p>

The People’s Art Historical Garden Centre Project<o:p></o:p>

Completed 25th October 2009 in collaboration with Adnan Madani. We have collaborated on several projects previously, notably “The Frankfurt School” video which is also covered in previous blog entries. See the newly added page of documentation and narrated video. Akbar Naqvi’s book “Image and Identity” (Oxford, 1997) is systematically dismantled and converted into useful paper bags. It is unbound and liberated from it’s burden of assumed authority. A reclamation, a reinterpretation and dissemination. Even an insemination (seeds are added to each art-historical bag). Like seeds themselves it is finally disseminated to the public of Lahore. <o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

<o:p>
</o:p>

Eden project<o:p></o:p>

I have yet to locate specialist input for this project and I now see it as being a much longer term initiative. I hope at least part of it may be realized by next summer’s residency.<o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

<o:p>
</o:p>

Berlin Collaboration 2009-2010<o:p></o:p>

I have sent out initial emails towards this collaboration. It is intended that a dual project be negotiated that comes to fusion and fruition in Berlin next summer. Something that involves horticultural practices in the cities of Lahore and Berlin.<o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

<o:p>
</o:p>

Readings, recent and in progress, 1st Nov. 2009<o:p></o:p>

Tim Richardson. Vista, The Culture and Politics of Gardens.<o:p></o:p>

K. Helphand. Defiant Gardens.<o:p></o:p>

Khan. The Gardener.<o:p></o:p>

Ian Sinclair. Hackney that Rose-Red Empire.<o:p></o:p>

Reza Aslan. How to Win a Cosmic War.<o:p></o:p>

Charles Darwin. The Formation of Vegetable Mould.<o:p></o:p>

Foucault. Several Readers and The Order of Things.<o:p></o:p>

Isenberg. The Nature of Cities.<o:p></o:p>

Belting. Garden of Earthly Delights.<o:p></o:p>

Jellicoe. The Landscape of Man.<o:p></o:p>

Coverley. Psychogeography.<o:p></o:p>

Reynolds. On Guerrilla Gardening.<o:p></o:p>

Allen. Kipling Sahib.<o:p></o:p>

Solnit. As Eve Said to the Serpent.<o:p></o:p>

Driver. Nash. Landing.<o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

<o:p>
</o:p>

Research<o:p></o:p>

I will be contacting Kenneth Helphand for my research on the ”Post-Colonial Garden”. This is currently under negotiation with my mentor concerning it’s whole approach to the subject.<o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

Read more

Lahore City (Context) September 2009

Uncategorized

Comments Closed


Share this post
Media_http1bpblogspot_zcqlz

Media_http3bpblogspot_iubam
Media_http1bpblogspot_fatox

Media_http1bpblogspot_ywctf

“Main Boulevard September 2009”
Sony HD Handycam

Media_http2bpblogspot_czhud

Media_http2bpblogspot_epany

Media_http3bpblogspot_ymhnw

Media_http4bpblogspot_cgjoc

Read more

“Dream Flowers” (Context images)

Uncategorized

Comments Closed


Share this post
Media_http3bpblogspot_tjhge

Media_http3bpblogspot_zriih

Media_http2bpblogspot_idiry

Media_http1bpblogspot_huaij

Read more

“Roti Home” (Work)

Uncategorized

Comments Closed


Share this post
Media_http3bpblogspot_dqfhj

Media_http2bpblogspot_xvjbg

Media_http4bpblogspot_shyph

Media_http4bpblogspot_ahlao

Media_http4bpblogspot_epjst

How to make work from incidental encounters such as this?
Old roti’s being stored in a disused bird-cage on top of a broken dolls push-chair.
I’m going to set it up on a plinth under studio lights and see what happens.
Maybe track around it with a video camera. recently got a Nikon 35mm adapter for the XL-1.

Read more

Untitled

Uncategorized

Comments Closed


Share this post
Transart draft Proposals
Research and studio 2009-2
010


Work Year-1
davidalesworth.com (blog links also on home page)

Research-Proposal (year-2)


Draft title: “Working the Garden, a consideration of the garden in contemporary Pakistan”.


Towards my studio work “A Taxonomy of Eden” I will be researching gardens and urban landscape in contemporary Pakistan. This will include varying attitudes to the notion of nature, wilderness and the paradise garden. Also the legacy of aging colonial parks. Besides readings (see bibliography below) I will interview a cross section of contemporary society from career gardeners in Lahore’s parks, agricultural workers, religious scholars (and lay practitioners from various religions and sects) the educated and the less educated in the city and countryside of Lahore and Karachi (possibly further afield also). From nursery owners, the head of the Punjab Horticultural Authority to jobbing residential gardeners in the Defence housing authorities of Karachi and Lahore. This will follow a format of recordings, translations, transcriptions and analysis. Also photography and some video. I work as a freelance horticultural consultant in Pakistan and have done so for the past 21 years. My clients currently include Agha Khan Cultural Services Pakistan, with whom I am working on several restoration projects, including the uplift of the North Circular Park belt around Lahore’s old city.
(Sacred Texts. Garden Design. Garden History. Landscape. Popular Culture. Decorated Transport. Trees on the edge between nature and culture. Motifs. Carpets. Ageing colonial public parks in Lahore. The culture of the Mali.)

“Working the Garden”
Draft Bibliography (11 July 2009) Part Questia, part owned.

Albinia, Alice. Empires of the Indus. John Murray. 2008.
Anderson, Earl R. Folk-Taxonomies in Early English. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003.
Anderson, Edgar. Plants, Man and Life. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1952.
Anesaki, Masaharu. Art, Life, and Nature in Japan. Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1933.
Arber, Agnes. Herbals, Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany, 1470-1670. Cambridge, England: University Press, 1938.
Aubrey, James R., ed. John Fowles and Nature: Fourteen Perspectives on Landscape. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999.
Aydon, Cyril. Charles Darwin, His life and times. Running Press. 2008.
Bailey, L. H. How Plants Get Their Names. New York: Dover Publications, 1963.
Barton, Gregory Allen. Empire Forestry and the Origins of Environmentalism. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Baydawi, Abd Allah, and Mahmud Isfahani. Nature, Man and God in Medieval Islam: ‘abd Allah Baydawi’s Text, Tawali’ Al-Anwar Min Matali’ Al-Anzar, along with Mahmud Isfahani’s Commentary, Matali’ Al-Anzar, Sharh Tawali’ Al-Anwar. Translated by Calverley, Edwin E. and James W. Pollock. Edited by Edwin E. Calverley and James W. Pollock. Vol. 2,. Boston: Brill, 2002.
Bedford, Henry F. Citizen Politics and Nuclear Power Citizen Politics and Nuclear Power. Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, 1990.
Bell, Simon. Landscape: Pattern, Perception, and Process. New York: Spon Press, 1999.
Benson, Lyman D. Plant Taxonomy: Methods and Principles. New York: Ronald Press Co., 1962.
Bracey, H. E. English Rural Life: Village Activities, Organisations, and Institutions. London: Routledge and Paul, 1959.
Brichto, Herbert Chanan. The Names of God: Poetic Readings in Biblical Beginnings. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Brother, Nan. Men and Gardens. 1st ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956.
Burden, Robert and Stephan Kohl, eds. Landscape and Englishness. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006.
Busch, Lawrence, William B. Lacy, Jeffrey Burkhardt, Douglas Hemken, Jubel Moraga-Rojel, Timothy Koponen, and José De Souza Silva. Making Nature, Shaping Culture: Plant Biodiversity in Global Context. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.
Campana, Richard J. Arboriculture: History and Development in North America. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1999.
Carr, David M. The Erotic Word: Sexuality, Spirituality, and the Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Conlogue, William. Working the Garden: American Writers and the Industrialization of Agriculture. Edited by Jack Temple Kirby. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
Dale, Stephen F. The Garden of the Eight Paradises: Babur and the Culture of Empire in Central Asia, Afghanistan and India (1483-1530). Boston: Brill, 2004.
Don, Monty. Around the World in Eighty Gardens. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 2008.
Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Bantam Press. 2006.
Ereshefsky, Marc. The Poverty of the Linnaean Hierarchy: A Philosophical Study of Biological Taxonomy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Evans, David. A History of Nature Conservation in Britain. London: Routledge, 1997.
Eyler, Ellen C. Early English Gardens and Garden Books. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974.
Foerster, Norman. Nature in American Literature: Studies in the Modern View of Nature. New York: Macmillan, 1923.
Fry, Michael. A Manual of Nature Conservation Law. Oxford: Oxford University, 1995.
Gardens of Prehistory: The Archaeology of Settlement Agriculture in Greater Mesoamerica. Edited by Thomas W. Killion. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1992.
Gatta, John. Making Nature Sacred: Literature, Religion, and Environment in America from the Puritans to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Geikie, Archibald. The Love of Nature among the Romans during the Later Decades of the Republic and the First Century of the Empire. London: John Murray, 1912.
Gersdorf, Catrin and Sylvia Mayer, eds. Nature in Literary and Cultural Studies: Transatlantic Conversations on Ecocriticism. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006.
Grady, Wayne, ed. Bright Stars, Dark Trees, Clear Water: Nature Writings from North of the Border. Boston: David R. Godine, 1995
Harada, Jiro. The Lesson of Japanese Architecture. Revised ed. London: Studio Limited, 1954.
Hatton, Richard G. Handbook of Plant and Floral Ornament: Selected from the Herbals of the Sixteenth Century, and Exhibiting the Finest Examples of Plant-Drawing Found in Those Rare Works, Whether Executed in Wood-Cuts or in Copperplate Engravings, Arranged for the Use of the Decorator. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1960.
Harberd, Nicholas. Seed to Seed. Bloomsbury. 2006.
Hawks, Ellison, and G. S. Boulger. Pioneers of Plant Study. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1928.
Henderson, John. Hortus: The Roman Book of Gardening. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Hoffenberg, Peter H. An Empire on Display: English, Indian, and Australian Exhibitions from the Crystal Palace to the Great War. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001.
Howes, Laura L. Chaucer’s Gardens and the Language of Convention. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1997.
Huggett, R
ichard John. Geoecology: An Evolutionary Approach. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Hunt, John Dixon. Garden and Grove: The Italian Renaissance Garden in the English Imagination, 1600-1750. 1st ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.
Huth, Hans. Nature and the American: Three Centuries of Changing Attitudes. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.
Jacobs, Noah Jonathan. Naming-Day in Eden: The Creation and Recreation of Language. New York: Macmillan, 1958.
Keulartz, Jozef. Struggle for Nature: A Critique of Radical Ecology. London: Routledge, 1998.
King, Amy M. Bloom: The Botanical Vernacular in the English Novel. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Lehner, Ernst, and Johanna Lehner. Folklore and Symbolism of Flowers, Plants and Trees. New York: Tudor Publishing, 1960.
Leiss, William. The Domination of Nature. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994.
León, Luis De. The Names of Christ /. Translated by DurÁn, Manuel and William Kluback. New York: Paulist Press, 1984.
Luger, Michael I., and Harvey A. Goldstein. Technology in the Garden: Research Parks and Regional Economic Development. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
Merchant, Carolyn. Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Milton, Kay. Loving Nature: Towards an Ecology of Emotion. London: Routledge, 2002.
Noble, David W. The Eternal Adam and the New World Garden: The Central Myth in the American Novel since 1830. New York: Braziller, 1968.
Pavord, Anna. The Naming of Names, The search for order in the world of plants. Bloomsbury. 2005.
Prance, Ghillean and Mark Nesbitt, eds. Cultural History of Plants. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Reed, Howard S. A Short History of the Plant Sciences. Waltham, MA: Chronica Botanica, 1942.
Reed, Michael. The Landscape of Britain: From the Beginnings to 1914. London: Routledge, 1997.
Reynolds, Richard. On Guerrilla Gardening. Bloomsbury. 2008.
Robbins, R. H. A., ed. Religio Medici: Hydriotaphia: And, the Garden of Cyrus. Oxford: Oxford University, 1972.
Rojas, Carlos. The Garden of the Hesperides. Translated by Glad, Diana. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999.
Scidmore, Eliza Ruhamah. Winter India. New York: The Century Co., 1904.
Simmons, I. G. Interpreting Nature: Cultural Constructions of the Environment. New York: Routledge, 1993.
Stave, Shirley A. The Decline of the Goddess: Nature, Culture, and Women in Thomas Hardy’s Fiction. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995.
Gill, Simryn. Pearls. Raking Leaves. 2008.
Thomas, Julia Adeney. Reconfiguring Modernity: Concepts of Nature in Japanese Political Ideology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001.
Tillotson, Geoffrey. Pope and Human Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958
Trowbridge, Peter J., and Nina L. Bassuk. Trees in the Urban Landscape: Site Assessment, Design, and Installation. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2004.
Troyanov, Iliya. The Collector of Worlds. Faber & Faber. 2008 (Novel).
Turrill, W. B, ed. Vistas in Botany. New York: Pergamon, 1959.
Veenhuizen, Rene Van, ed. Cities Farming for the Future: Urban Agriculture for Green and Productive Cities. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2006.
Verdoorn, Frans, ed. Plants and Plant Science in Latin America. Waltham, MA: Chronica Botanica, 1945.
Webb, Richard E. The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1976.
Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith. My Garden of Memory: An Autobiography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923.

Transart Year-2
Studio Practice: “A Taxonomy of Eden”

Building upon “The Garden of Babel” 2009 as the initial format I will work towards examining aspects of various sacred texts in translation. Those of the Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity and Islam and possibly others in the broad grouping in relation to notions of the garden of Eden. In this respect I will be particularly focusing on the plants mentioned there. Using this with allied horticultural enquiry, and in consultation with various international scholars I would work to build a plausible taxonomy of Eden. The works may be gridded digital prints of botanical and zoological accession labels, as are to be found in Zoos and botanical gardens around the world. My work on “The Garden of Babel” revealed a pleasing lack of scientific rigour in the world of plant taxonomy. I would find reasonable botanical approximations of specifically mentioned plants in Eden (these will be real plants). I will aim for around 180-300 plants in a work. There may be one or more works. I will then make the labels in etched plastic laminates, as authentic botanical labels. Photograph them in particular settings, as I have learnt from the making of “The Garden of Babel”. These may then be composed as grids and printed as large C-prints. How the work will play out in other forms such as performance, video, audio, texts, woven carpets or illuminated manuscripts or their digital equivalents remains to be seen.

Notes/alternatives: Performative: (Autobiography/Horticulture/Video) The Lawn Mower. New Liberal Mowers, Lahore, producing Ransomes vintage 1950’s machines, monstrous machines evolving on their own paths away from their colonial models. Lawn grass is the white mans burden? Myself pulling a large mower around a massive lawn I have made, (re: Un Chien Andalou, the harness pulling all the mass of culture) I encounters at various Stations around the route (Columns of Stewardship for example). Garden machines, garden technologies, male (Machinery) and female (the land itself). A sort of Cremaster of the garden approach. Exploring the history of the lawn: it speaks of class aspirations, industrialization has allowing broad access to the privilege of the lawn, once the domain of the landed gentry. To make my own lawn-mowers and perform with them? (Very autobiographical). Greens, British racing greens (Brooklands, where I studied), English mower greens, the Suffolk Punch mower. Water cans, columns of Stewardship, a journey around the Tarogil lawns. Lawrence Mali’s. Howard Gem rotator’s. My grandfather’s horticultural medal. Events in the journey around the Tarogil play ground lawn, journeying on a ride-on mower?
Go down into the ground too, digging into the soil. Incorporate the “12.2.42” boxes in the fields of Tarogil.

Radical garden design, guerilla gardening? Imran’s early chainsaw, Bhor tree (at home), climbing trees, tree work equipment (I used to work as a tree-surgeon). Fruit bat counting Mali’s, Lawrence Gardens, Cantt. Water Towers. The canals, barrages and bal mitti of Punjab. Garden tools. Lahore Compost at the city dump. Shalimar Gardens in disarray. Punjab Horticultural Association, my meetings with them. Garden plans, graphics, plant taxonomy.
How to build upon “The Garden of Babel” work?

Car number plate grids? Hierarchies. Another trajectory.

DCA 12th
Lahore,
July 2009.

Read more