Mark Dion

Mark Dion made a garden, but not in the traditional sense. When I see most gardens, I think they look like gardens - a pretty simplistic statement, but I have a very clear image in my head when I think the word "garden".

When they've done here is take an actual tree from a forest and move it into a metropolitan area, with all it's moss and other such plants intact. Rather than a garden, it looks like a little window to a much larger, much more untamed place. It's both real and fake as the same time, with it's wild look contained in its completely artificial greenhouse structure.


Making it all even stranger is the shape of the greenhouse, which isn't symmetrical like most buildings; the walls are all kind of slanted, in a "forced perspective" as they described it.

I wouldn't think that something like this would work, taking something out of it's natural habitat, I mean. Obviously, a lot of work went into the life support systems for the plant life to face this challenge. The piece is definitely a clash of two worlds.

I am curious to know what local residents think of having this near them. I'm sure many think it's a little weird. I did, too, until they really explained it at the end of the video.