The Lost Garden

The Lost Garden
The Woodlands—Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
September 26 - October 18, 2014

The Lost Garden was a site-specific installation and performance exploring impermanence and the fragile nature of memory. In the 18th century, The Woodlands was William Hamilton's spectacular botanic garden and greenhouse but it nearly disappeared in the rapid urbanization of the early 19th century. The garden was saved from extinction by transforming it into a Victorian cemetery, or "memory garden." Drawing on the language of Victorian handcrafts like wax flowers under domes and jewelry made from human hair, the installation of knitted flowers memorialized the lost plants from Hamilton's garden. The performance took audiences on a song tour of the cemetery and into the installation to conjure the dream of the lost garden.