The Walled Garden is an installation by the artist May Cornet, designed and installed for the Contemporary Art festival SNAP in 2012. The installation was set within the remaining abandoned Malt Houses of the Snape Matings site, the internationally recognised concert hall and music trust founded by composer Benjamin Britten.
Cornet, who was born and grew up in Hackney, London, has discussed her pursuit and reverence of nature within an urban space, cherishing every spot of green — a fern growing in the shadow of a basement flat, a small plant nestled in the cracks of a concrete wall.
Brick structures sat on pallets produce a confusion of temporalities in this piece. The self-seeded annual becomes the binder, the element that fixes each plinth when the normal material of construction is haphazardly stacked on wooden slats. The plants are privileged whist recalling the circumstance of the unruly, un-curated weed camping out in garden walls and pathways.
The wild flowers used in her Walled Garden were sourced from seeds cultivated through a wild flower project in Norfolk. A full list of those used can be found in the publication produced by Cornet to accompany the installation. In further reading on the project, Cornet cites Dürer's work 'The Large Turf' as an inspiration for the piece. In much of her work, there are subtle nods to the works of others as well as a sense of continuity within her own works.
The geometric shapes siting alongside or sharing the brick plinths are platonic solid, variations of those found in other works by the artist. I recommend looking up her piece 'From Now On' in the Museum Biedermann-Donaueschingen collection.
Photo Credits: Nick Pope and SNAP 2012
A full write up on the 2013 SNAP installation and other pieces exhibited during the event can be found here: http://www.snapaldeburgh.co.uk/2012/exhibition2012.html