0:06

good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us this evening my name is catherine croston and

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i’m the executive director and chief curator of the art gallery of alberta i would like to begin by acknowledging

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that we are hosting this event from edmonton i’m a squashy waskahikin in treaty 6

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territory and region 4 of the metis nation of alberta we acknowledge this as the traditional

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and ancestral home of the nahiowak cree anishinabe soto nisitapi blackfoot nakota sioux danae

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and metis peoples and acknowledge the many indigenous first nations and inuit people who make alberta their home today

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we know that this acknowledgement is just one small recognition of the work we need to do to address and reverse the ongoing

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impacts of colonization our thoughts are with the people of the tacoma swap first nation in kamloops

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for the traumas that were forced upon them in the past and that they continue to endure today

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tonight’s talk by zenit verti the yoga khan garden a site of history and diplomacy

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is the first in a series of discussions about gardens that we are organizing this summer in association with our

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exhibition cornelia oberlander genius loci this exhibition explores the work of the

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internationally renowned canadian landscape architect who from the 1950s until the present has

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revealed new ways of understanding the human connection to the natural environment

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i would like to extend our most sincere condolences to the family and friends of cornelia oberlander

1:35

it was with great regret that we looked for passing on may 22nd just a month before her 100th birthday

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we are so very grateful that cornelia was able to play an active role in the development of our exhibition and

1:48

upcoming publication and i think we were able to realize and i’m thankful that we were able to realize both within her lifetime

1:56

it is now my honor to be able to produce zayn and fergie a thought leader facility persuasive

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champion of arts and advocate for artist rights zainab vergie has over four decades built a

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formidable representation reputation as an artist writer critic cultural administrator and public

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intellectual in canada and internationally a firm believer that art is a public good

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she has contributed to international instruments of culture such as the status of the artist and cultural diversity and building

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institutions such as the british columbia arts council as an annotator she is engaged with

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different stakeholders to observe critique and analyze the quotidian practices of the art and culture sector

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to actively work towards engaged public debate and conversations her work as a cultural bureaucrat

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cultural diplomat artist activist and writer is consistent and contiguous with what

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might be termed a critical transversal aesthetic her recent commentary on museums at a

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crossroads in galilee’s west magazine generated a lot of traction today’s talk

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is representative of her sustained research interests in water and gardens and these

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thematic inquiries are part of her forthcoming book titled the arts and international relations art

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artists networks art institutions i sought after speaker in the next few

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weeks zayn zaineb will be delivering a keynote address at the london asia arts world conference

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hosted by the paul mellen center for studies in british art a scholarly center in london later in

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the month her solo exhibition speech acts zainab vergie will be opening at center a the

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vancouver international center for contemporary asian art currently her work is also part of the

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exhibition engaging creativities art in the pandemic hosted by the royal

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society of canada and the university of alberta among many awards and honors in 2020

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zainabergie received the governor general’s award in visual and media arts for outstanding contribution

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and this year ocad university conferred her with an honorary doctorate

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she was appointed as a mclaughlin college fellow at york university and recently chosen as a mentor with the

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prestigious action canada fellowship a 10-month public policy leadership program that aims to enhance

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youth leaders understanding of the country and public policy for the cohort of 2021-2022

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zainab was the executive director of the western front in vancouver and has held positions at the canada council for the

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arts the department of canadian heritage and the city of mississauga she is currently executive director of

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galleries on ontario ontario galleries a voice of art galleries and museums in

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canada before i turn things over to our distinguished guest speaker just a few notes xena will speak for

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about 45 to 50 minutes following which she will answer questions and please enter all of your questions

4:52

using the chat function as well we’ll be posting a survey link in the chat

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it would be really great if you could provide your feedback in the chat in that survey before you leave i would

5:03

like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the pool family foundation at the edmonton community foundation who

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support the pool center of design at the aga our cornelia oberlander exhibition and

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the summer garden talk series are presented as part of our pool center of design programming

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i would also like to thank epcor who provide support for all aga online programming

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through their heart and soul fund now please join me in welcoming zainab fergie

5:38

hi um good evening everyone and thank you catherine for your kind words and gracious

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invitation to speak um at this forum um today

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i’m really honored to be um part of this public programming and i

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want to also thank the the team at the art gallery of alberta

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i live and work on the ancestral and traditional territories of the mississaugas of the credit

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the haudenosau the anishinaabeg and the wandat this territory

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is part of the dish with one spoon weapon belt covenant and is also covered by the upper canada

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treaties we’re all joining today from different locations and i encourage you

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to acknowledge the ancestral and traditional territories of your area

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with the passing of cornelia oberlander this talk and the upcoming exhibition

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cornelia han oberlander genius lokai becomes even more special this

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exhibition explores the work of the canadian landscape architect who from the 1950s until the

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present has revealed new means of understanding the human connection to the natural

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environment in the context of this exhibition i will be speaking on the agakon

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garden and will explore the meaning of landscape and its semantic valency in islamic

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culture further i’ll foreground the idea of gardens as the lead motif

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of landscape planning its use in statecraft and diplomacy now before i begin the

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talk though i would like to acknowledge a few individuals who have been very supportive in this endeavor thank you to nordyan

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mabani i want to thank dr lee foote professor emeritus an

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ex-director at the university of alberta botanical garden from 2011 to 2020 and he graciously

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shared images and stories of the making of the alga khan garden and i really appreciated that

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i also want to thank zara somani president of the ismaili council of edmonton for her continuing support of my work

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i’d also like to thank narendra pagkari for stimulating intellectual insights

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and finally i want to thank somani who did this artwork for this

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presentation at very short notice a fine artist we work together at the

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international art gallery in lisbon as part of the diamond jubilee arts festival

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and this is a square kufic calligraphy and it says bismillah top to bottom

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and has a mirror image which is reflecting bottom to top now i see the resonance of the

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geometry of the garden in this image

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on a more somber note i want to quote

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we know there are lots of sites similar to kamloops that are going to come to light in the

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future we need to begin to prepare ourselves for that

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those that are survivors and intergenerational survivors need to understand that this information

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is important for all of canada to understand the magnitude of the truth of this

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experience these are the words and we must heed them of the retired senator sinclair

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chair of the truth and reconciliation commission as all canadians and the world

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we must be together in this healing and help survivors to

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gather their stories and memories [Music]

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on may 22nd cornelia han overlander passed away at the age of 99 in

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vancouver an institution indeed in the field of landscape architecture

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she said in a 2018 piece quote my passion is to be with nature and

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introduce people to it from all levels of society i believe in the therapeutic effects of

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greenery on the human soul

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now the spirit of a place depends upon the special relationship things in that

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place share with each other the genius loci offers a conceptual connection between

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the exhibition and my talk on the argo khan garden genius lokai emerges from the work of

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malcolm control who speaks about an environmental framework the genus lokai of a place

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according to him possesses both general characteristics of a place

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its presence and more detailed features its identity it is not dependent

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only on visible elements but carries an underlying metaphysical order d

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fairchild ruggles a professor of landscape history and an author of a definitive book on

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islamic gardens and landscapes makes a very fundamental point

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ruggles says that gardens and landscapes are elusive subjects

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they’re positioned in both space and time yet belong to neither exclusively

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exclusively because they are simultaneously a living presence and a memory

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however the garden is thus always the product of a society that defines it

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and places it within a discourse of space and they enter either consciously or

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subconsciously into the shared cultural imagination thus the garden emerges as the

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in-between space between the physical and imaginative

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in that sense landscape and garden can become part of what malcolm control calls

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an environmental framework so let’s move forward and let’s take a snapshot of

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approaches to this idea of landscape

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now through my art practice i’ve been engaged with the idf landscape and what you see here is a still from my

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work a kootsil plur a video poem which explores time and space

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allowing the viewer to experience a moment and the fullness of silence this work was

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um it’s a short work of seven minutes to uh 7.34 minutes it was made in 1993

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and became part of the new canadian video exhibition at moma new york and later traversing

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um territory part two um which was uh road movies in a

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post-colonial landscape and it was curated by judith mastai for the portland institute of contemporary

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art in um 1997. and so what i’m alluding to here is that there

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are multiple approaches to this idea of landscape

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so this assemblage of approaches to landscape very clearly identifies that it is not

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an easy task to pinpoint one element as a dominant lens you can’t

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just pinpoint on one element as a dominant lens and this schema illustrates the

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point and i will not uh elaborate on each but i will say this

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that landscape is not simply what we see but a way of seeing we see it with our

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eye but interpret it with our mind and ascribe values to landscape for

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intangible spiritual reasons landscape can therefore be seen

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as a cultural construct in which our sense of place and memories are embedded now similarly

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a historical landscape um captures our sense of place and heritage and it’s not an isolated

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experience but let’s let’s go dig a little bit further

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the idea of landscape is a western construct conceptually it is rooted in the

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renaissance as europe moved into the early modernity period by the 16th century

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and during this early modern period the major transformative process unfurled both at an individual level and

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within society as a whole at the heart of this transformation lies

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the idea that one form of individual habitus or social organization becomes the

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dominant expression and what i’m alluding to is the making of the urban

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and rural both like landscape are very eurocentric ideas

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it was during the renaissance that the focus shifted from the enclosed walled gardens of

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monasteries and palaces towards the outlying landscape and distant horizons

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and what this shift emphasized was the idea of the controlling view of the surrounding countryside

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and this is where we notice the emergence of the scenic and visual dimensions of landscape

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this spread across europe and one can see the outward gaze and grand design scale

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which is best manifest in the french formal landscape and of course a good example of this is

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is vasa jardin du chateau de versailles the geometrically ordered garden

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layout dwarfed the palace and scale and provided a vista that stretched the

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horizon during the course of this period as the wider countryside was appropriated by

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the privileged few landscape became a means of expressing power and signifying control this manifested

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not only in the formal ordering of the landscape but more importantly that the visual

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appreciation was exclusive to the point from which the seeing occurred i.e that of the owner

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now this is the central motif that informs the western understanding of landscape

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that core notion of the viewpoint and hence control the related idea

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of horizon uh it’s an important feature of this western understanding

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that is absent within the islamic context for instance one can be at the center of

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a garden and be able to look in all directions but never have one controlling view but i’m going to

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come back to this later if time permits now as we move forward let’s try to

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understand what a landscape is and how it is situated in the islamic context

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of muslim societies

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let’s explore how lang landscape becomes a language to control our reality

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the western world began to orientalize the non-western world through landscape

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by attributing meaning to it landscape was used to classify civilizations based on western criteria

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there’s a linguistic concern regarding the absence of an equivalence to the word landscape

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in arabic persian turkish urdu and other languages of the muslim worlds

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jau makuzumi has noted that there is a lack of precisely

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equivalent worlds words in arabic for landscape as it is used in the west

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and in persian and turkish as well the most common words for landscape in arabic are

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manzar [Music] which refer to a view a spectacle a

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scene a perspective etc and likewise in persian

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manzar refers to an object of sight another word persian associated with

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landscape is fair which can refer to walking or strolling

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in a place other words associated with landscape include dur nama the ottoman turkish

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used the term manzara and in contemporary turkish you see the word

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pejars from the french passage and the peshawar literally means the

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landscape in urdu soma can indicate a scene

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associated with the landscape professor m.r ganoon prefers

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probing volume on translating the garden does not use the word landscape at all

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in its deep reflections on the language of contemporary persian garden its experience and meaning the word

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landscape landscape doesn’t appear similarly lamia natori

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has retract has retraced the development of the linguistic uses of words

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representing landscape in classical arabic literature from the 8th to the 11th centuries

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and draws explicit connections among landscape expressions

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pesarjer manzar manchad basically it’s geography and culture

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now fairchild ruggles has also explored this relationship um the

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relationship among sight optics and landscape in the angelusian context

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and as a next step in this process ruggles has drawn on research on vision territory

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and agronomic science in andalusia into dialogue with critical literature

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on landscape in the western social thought having said so let’s see how the islamic

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gardens evolved

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islamic civilization brought dramatic changes to the landscape it inhabited with the skillful

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acquisition and transportation of water the parched lands of the middle east and northern

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africa flourish with man-made verdant oases that not only transformed the economy

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with their agricultural products but also became a powerful form of cultural expression

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the techniques employed to affect this transformation originated among ancient persians and

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romans but muslim communities implemented them more broadly for a complex web of

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motivation having to do with the system of land ownership and labor

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inheritance laws taxation urban growth and an idolized vision of country life

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it is in this context that one views this chronology of islamic gardens as we can see the islamic garden

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first began to manifest itself in the european garden culture in the 17th century

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enticed by the new concept of free expression of space and design the infil influence percolated down to

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florence and even the royal pavilion of brighton in england

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with the impetus of the 19th and 20th century modernity the islamic garden was othered and

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became part of the traditional we see some examples of it in private

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gardens such as the shangri-la in hawaii i think this gives us a reach rich

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context to situate the agakon garden in the 21st century

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and understand what does this articulation of a classic mogul garden imply

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so what is a gomoco garden i want to elaborate a bit here because

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it’s it’s really imperative to understand the complex history of the mogul garden the foremost

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characteristic of the mogul garden is its own architecture and orderly planning which

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barbour in the 16th century famously claimed to have introduced

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into an unclean and disorderly hindustan says ebba koch the moguls came to india

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as the tamarids founded by the turko monk turco mongol warlord

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taimour or tamerlane as known in the west circa 1370 to 1405.

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the taimari dynasty ruled much of iran and central asia for over a century

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first from the samarkand now uzbekistan and then from herat

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now afghanistan in 18th century europe the mughal dynasty was still known as the

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descendants of tamerlan babur the founder of the mogul dynasty

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was of course the most familiar with the thai marine culture having experienced it firsthand in both central

23:38

asia and harat nevertheless his descendants particularly jahangir and shahadjan

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both in the 17th century took a renewed interest in affirming the relationship

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as it lent prestige and credibility to their own marines the most visible and enduring expression

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of the mogul um tamarid connection was however architecture

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and from the beginning the moguls cultivated their patronage of building

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as a statement of their presence in india formerly laid out gardens functioned for

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the moguls as they did for the timer roads [Music] timeraids as open-air palaces

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and were indispensable for the mogul lifestyle the moguls also made them the setting

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for their tombs babur calls his first garden at agra

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laid out in 1526 at chahar bahag

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like some of his earlier gardens in present-day afghanistan barbour used the term in its widest

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sense not necessarily for a garden on a strict cross axial plan but rather for large

24:54

architecturally planned gardens with intersecting raised paved walkways

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platforms and pools after babur the moguls did not use the term chaharbag

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very much in shah jahani sources it is employed metaphorically

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for the earth or the terrestrial jaharbag of the world otherwise a garden is usually just

25:19

called the bag or the garden or bag chair for smaller versions

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still we owe to the moguls the grandest and most consistently planned planned

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chahar bags in the entire history of garden architecture

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now here what you can see are our three different types of the char baha you can sit the top the cross

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axial which is the tomb of humayun at the bottom left is the its terraced

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the shalimar gardens in kashmir and on the bottom right which is um

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the waterfront the lao lal mahal in in rajasthan

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now with this context that i’ve given you um let’s listen to uh brad

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gastinger of the nelson bird waltz landscape architecture firm about the design

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imperatives of the khan garden

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the inspiration for the design really began with the res with research we had the opportunity we were charged

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to really look at the ways that this project could in and of itself the process of this

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project could contribute to global research and understanding and knowledge about islamic garden traditions the garden is

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really made up of three primary areas the woodland bog

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the central bag and the bustan the woodland bog is a walk

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through the woods and so this series of walkways leads one through this existing

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woods and also highlights the openings in the canopy created by some of the existing wetlands

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in that valley the central court or chahabak is the second main area of the garden

27:19

it’s the most constructed of the of the three it is highlighted by

27:25

a series of sunken gardens and plantings that will change color and

27:30

texture throughout the year and it is organized by a central uh fountain system that begins at an

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upper terrace spills down over a series of terraces and then flows across a large flat plain

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a large court towards the constructed wetlands and the and the and the calipan beyond the third main area

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of the garden is called the bustan and it’s a nod to the orchard landscapes of the islamic world and this series of

28:01

plantings surrounds the kalapond and the kalapana was an existing wetland

28:06

that was formed into a pond some years ago and this project gives us an

28:12

opportunity to restore and enhance the capacity of the wetland plantings to contribute to

28:18

the local ecology and also serve as a educational aspect of the garden really the expertise and knowledge

28:25

that’s built here over many decades of experience has really been invaluable to the process

28:37

great um yeah so you know the goal

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the goal of the garden um was to tell the story

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of the edmonton landscape while at the same time forging a connection between

29:01

contemporary alberta and the islamic world of the 16th and 17th century

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and you know from what i spoke earlier and in the previous sections we can see that it’s a very rich history

29:16

and as thomas waltz says uh who was the firm that built this

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we were asked quotes we were asked to look beyond the bounds of the traditional islamic garden

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and to develop ideas that would bring a new kind of relevancy in the 21st century end quote

29:36

and i think the challenge was really was not to replicate but really create something unique to this site

29:43

and and and that is exactly what was created the northernmost islamic garden with an

29:49

appeal in all four seasons of the year

29:57

so the ogre khan garden is situated in the alberta parkland region

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with the broad expanses of prairie and with shallow surface depression in ancient sand

30:10

dunes that form the pothole wetlands it is situated along with two other

30:16

gardens the japanese and indigenous garden and all three share common soil and

30:22

water and and the water flows laterally the material used is very representative

30:29

the sandstones given that it’s situated in the sand dunes the green granite it came from quebec

30:37

and it has portugal limestones one can see in the columns of the talar and

30:43

interestingly the talar connects two different sand dunes

30:48

um one of the botanical connectors that dr foote mentioned when we were speaking

30:55

was the rat root also called sweet flag and or muskrat root plant

31:02

and this is a plant which actually connect which is um a connection across the indigenous

31:08

american and muslim cultures it grows in india

31:14

central asia south russia and also in north america in brief

31:21

what we see is that gardens are secular endeavors stemming from the practical need to

31:27

organize the surrounding space tame nature enhance the earth’s yield

31:33

and create a legible map on which to distribute natural resources the removal of the

31:40

garden from the broader context of landscape agriculture and water supply results in

31:46

a limited and superficial view giving extraordinary emphasis to religion and dynastic politics while

31:53

ignore while ignoring other factors that contributed equally to garden form and meaning

32:01

and the auger khan garden draws us to this very core of what a garden is in the 21st

32:08

century um i’m going to ask helen again to play

32:13

a video just so we can get a virtual tour of the garden

32:29

[Music]

32:40

bye [Music]

32:54

oh [Music]

33:08

oh [Music]

33:39

[Music]

33:47

[Applause] [Music]

34:22

[Music]

34:44

[Applause]

34:53

[Music]

35:00

so [Music]

35:08

[Applause] [Music]

35:26

[Applause] so

35:34

[Music]

35:42

so [Music]

35:56

so

36:04

[Music] that although gardens are typically

36:10

appreciated as peaceful spaces of apolitical serenity um here i wanted to highlight how

36:17

gardens can provide new sites and sensibilities that complicate our understanding of

36:22

diplomacy war and peace and while gardens are a popular location

36:28

for diplomatic performances i mean for example the treaty of versailles the global politics of gardens still

36:35

remains under-researched in international relations and i think it’s imperative to take

36:41

cognizance of gardens as objects of diplomacy to examine gardens as contingent social

36:48

constructions of social ordering and world ordering which both shape and

36:53

participate in global politics in this forthcoming book of mine i try

36:58

to engage with the role of gardens in diplomacy and in matters of peacekeeping and

37:04

gardens here are a site an institution an enactment and an encounter in addition

37:11

to analyzing gardens as sites of symbolic power my book will also look at

37:16

um looks at them as mater as a material modality where diplomacy war and peace

37:22

are represented performed and experienced through more embodied effective and everyday

37:30

encounters um

37:36

now on a more philosophical note um i’d like to invoke this beautiful

37:41

couplet panned by allama iqbal baha’is in simpler terms

37:48

it invokes that there’s still so much work to be done before one can return to paradise

37:56

and this resonates well with what philosopher richard harrison writes in in gardens an essay on the human

38:04

condition and i’ll quote we inhabit relatively permanent worlds that precede

38:11

our birth and outlast our death binding the generations together

38:16

in a historical continuum work builds the world that makes us historical the historical

38:23

world in turn serves as the stage for human action the deeds and speech from which humans

38:31

be it from which human beings realize their potential for freedom and affirm their dignity in the radiance

38:38

of the public square

38:44

in this respect the agakon garden foregrounds its social impetus

38:50

and invites all of us to engage in a cultural dialogue that brings together desperate

38:57

populations towards a better tomorrow sharing the beautiful and bountiful nature and offering a

39:05

graceful stewardship of these lands this poignant quote captures the very raison d’etre of

39:12

gardens robert harrison offers an exploration of our need to garden in the midst of

39:20

plague poverty war and our everyday lives as a counterforce to histories

39:27

deleterious drives it is no surprise that thomas wall walls the principal of

39:33

the firm was reading harrison when he was touring the islamic and mogul gardens

39:40

on the on the insistence of his highness the ogre khan a garden is a site of peace and

39:47

reconciliation in the face of tragedy amidst dust

39:52

it is in this context that the four point eight hector got again garden

39:59

um in alberta was gifted by his highness thiago khan and i think becomes more valuable

40:07

thank you

40:15

thank you very much dana for your presentation and i want to thank all of the people

40:20

who attended could people who are interested in posting questions for uh zainab please enter them into the

40:28

chat and then i can uh convey them to her

40:33

so there are many people who are expressing thanks to you for your presentation some people

40:38

have suggested that we might want to redo it again in the future um and perhaps do so without some of the

40:44

technical um technical difficulties that we’ve experienced this evening um

40:52

and um so that’s an opportunity we could do so oh and here’s

40:58

some questions a question about how do children relate

41:03

to the peaceful how do children relate to the peaceful

41:09

nature of the garden i’m going to extrapolate from that

41:19

is that a question to me how do you oh here’s a question from uh from lindy she would like to

41:25

hear more about the concept of viewpoint in islamic gardens

41:32

okay um yes so so what i’ve understood in in my

41:39

in my reading and in my um sort of study of this is that um

41:47

the the viewpoint is not is really coming more from a western

41:53

context this idea of of having you know um this sort of panoramic view uh and it’s

42:01

really coming out of a very western idea of landscape in in um as part of a control mechanism

42:09

right whilst in the islamic uh it’s it’s not really uh there uh it that’s not the

42:17

the primary um the thing and so um i i i think that

42:24

you know this idea of landscape is really ordered um and and by the west and it’s

42:31

classified in in particular ways and it basically there’s four things um in order for landscape to classify

42:39

civilizations there’s criteria these are the criteria defined by western culture there’s four things

42:44

there needs to be one or several words for landscape there needs to be a literature oral or

42:51

written describing landscapes or extolling their beauty there needs to

42:56

be pictorial representations of landscapes and they need to be pleasure gardens but

43:02

there’s always this idea of the this having this panoramic viewpoint

43:08

with it um and so you know very different um sort of

43:15

idea about what landscape is from the different cultures

43:22

thank you and to go back to the question from christine your question was yes how do you think

43:30

that children relate to the peaceful nature of the islamic garden

43:36

that’s such a great question um you know i i i’m not sure i can say definitively

43:43

how they do but um children are always amazing in that uh and they feel things very really and

43:50

state them and i expect that any garden that is that

43:55

serene and peaceful or reflective spaces um must have some effect as they do on

44:01

us so i can’t say that i can per se really answer that i i

44:07

you know i mean i’d say um it can have the effect of being very

44:13

therapeutic but i would say that for everyone right it can put all of us in that very meditative

44:19

reflective space and we can feel the silence you know um

44:26

as well in those spaces but um i i don’t know i can’t say you know

44:33

exactly what that means maybe it helps us de-accelerate from the instant world that we live in

44:42

i wonder you know in your closing remarks about the importance of gardens

44:47

you know culturally and as sites of uh meditation and reflection if you

44:53

think now the world in which we live which is so complicated by um obviously in the last 18 months the

45:00

pandemic but also by kind of acts of violence and and the repercussions of histories of of trauma

45:08

do you see that gardens now fully become more important for us or something

45:13

uh that we will begin to create more spaces that provide that for people

45:18

you know i i’d find it hard not to think that you’re that that would be we will rediscover

45:24

them in different ways perhaps we’ll rediscover them in different ways perhaps they’ve always been with us but

45:32

maybe we’ll build a new relationship as we build them i mean i’m just thinking of even all the crises around

45:38

climate change and you know how what is the stewardship of the land how do we

45:43

understand it how do we work with it and what can the indigenous peoples teach us what can we learn respectfully from them

45:51

and i i think that even just the idea of like you know urban farming urban gardens um

45:57

um you know there’s so many different things that that we could be doing and and i

46:04

think that you know um in some of the things that i said right is is like in fact

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you know the garden actually makes us you know we we’re part of that making of the garden and it also brings

46:18

meaning for us um in in in and you just think of like heirloom

46:24

seeds you know and preserving those and and sort of fighting you know um

46:30

the kind of um you know um uh taking over

46:37

of our heritage that’s occurred and how food production has changed you know so drastically even in the last 30 years

46:44

let’s say so i i do think that the pandemic has given us a moment to think about

46:52

many things um but i would definitely say that you know among the crisis is the climate change

46:58

and and how do we actually think of garden within that context

47:03

and and what can we do um to preserve and respectfully toward the

47:10

land there is a question from brittany about how you would include more haptic

47:15

qualities in a garden

47:21

yeah um so we understand haptic to do with our with our senses um

47:28

um and and i i guess i always think of the garden that way

47:34

anyways because i think it does i’m not sure if i’ve understood the question but um

47:40

from my perspective i think that the visual it it employs all your senses and it can

47:45

do i mean you know i’m just thinking of the the beautiful um garden even that at banff catherine that

47:53

you you know of mike mcdonald’s the butterfly garden right where all the local

47:58

um species plant species were built into the garden and those plants

48:04

specifically drew butterflies to that space right so there’s many ways i think that we can

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think of of light of the connectors of things that enlighten um are literally

48:19

our senses bring them to life right uh there’s someone who is asking what is

48:26

the haptic quality oh qualities that you can touch and feel that brittany answered in the

48:31

chat um it’s interesting you mentioned mike mcdonald’s gardens because one of the other talks that we are doing in part of

48:38

this series is a conversation about mike mcdonald’s butterfly gardens um and the butterfly gardens uh in

48:45

alberta being of course one of the damp center but also uh the old arcale of alberta under the name of the

48:51

edmonton art gallery uh created a butterfly garden uh back in the early 2000s so

48:57

that conversation is coming up on july 22nd and it’s also um interested that

49:03

occ-1 uh the indigenous uh curatorial collective and exhibition space here in edmonton is

49:10

rebuilding a garden inspired by mike mcdonald’s butterfly gardens this summer so

49:16

yeah very exciting well thank you so much zane it’s been a pleasure having you join us

49:22

this evening i’ve always enjoyed our conversations and um you know now that we’re entering into a time

49:28

where alberta is beautiful and warm and the restrictions are being lifted that i think that many people should

49:35

take at any opportunity they have to go to see the ago khan garden uh if they haven’t been there before and

49:41

so you know the u of a gardens are a magical place with um you know so much for people to

49:47

experience so thank you for giving us this kind of uh glimpse into those gardens and the

49:52

history and um how important they are for us as a as culture and society so thank you so much

49:58

great and thank you very much for for inviting me and um i yet have to come to alberta to

50:05

see the gardens myself and meet you and everybody else but yes

50:10

thank you so much and um um we you know i i’ll i’ll be i’m really

50:15

sorry about all the technical difficulties as well but hopefully people got most of it i’m sure

50:21

they did yes thank you so much and i hope you have a wonderful evening and i do hope to see you in person soon

50:28

thanks so much thanks everyone thank you good night everybody

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