Un Jardín Propio: Ana María Rueda | Curated by María Margarita Malagón

Ideas for Un Jardín Propio 

Dreams are where fears live.

 

Un Jardín Propio (2021-2023) is dedicated to the strength of spirit of people living in situations of forced displacement: the garden as an antidote. It is a tribute to the instinct of life that manifests itself in the dream of recovering the sacred home.

I think of the garden as a reality and as a metaphor, as a teacher that teaches patience and prudent care, as the place par excellence where the mind calms down and breathes better, where there is reciprocity with the earth and the planet.

The place of loss is not physical, it cannot be seen. Nor does one's own garden have a precise place, it arises from the emotional construction of an image. It is the projection of a desire that contrasts with the loss. How to make its emotional charge visible?

The longed-for garden does not forget the wound. It is not a contemplative garden, but a place of action towards renewal. It implies a well-tended space, beautifully cultivated, full of warmth and clarity. It is a hymn to life, to the instant, to reconstruction, to recomposition and to the discovery of the inner strength of the family and social group that has been violated. It is resistance to horror and an antidote to fear, violence, the meaninglessness of pain and the exhaustion of so much indifference towards the life of others.

 

Do we only see what we already know?

 

What is in the night is also in the day.
The garden shelters the open sky and, also, the earth as a promise of a place to inhabit. Despite the pain, hope is a glimmer that illuminates the areas of darkness and paradox: the light in the dark, the strong in the fragile and vulnerable, the light that rises above the heavy.

 

- Ana María Rueda