Alisa Gorshenina at Jardins d’Etretat, Normandy, France

August 15 - August 20, 2024

Jardins d’Etretat, Normandy, France

Please see more here: https://etretatgarden.fr/en/news/alisa-gorshenina-main and https://alicehualice.com/proecty.

“A garden is a rich and complex symbol that conveys a wide range of meanings. Gardens can be a beacon of hope, a place where life can flourish even in the darkest of times.

Gardens stand in contrast to the chaos of the outside world. A garden is a place where even one person can tame and bring order to the wildness of nature.

But for me, a garden is not a symbol of domination. In my country, gardens are used to grow fruit and flowers. They combine practical and aesthetic functions. A garden is a place where people’s desire to create and nurture something new takes its purest form.

My own desire to create as an artist echoes the gardeners’ desire to cultivate.

For me, a garden is a safe place, a natural shelter from everything frightening that is happening in the world, a place where you can feel the ground firmly beneath your feet and sense that there is something you can control, though not subdue. In my garden, many different things grow, and this becomes possible only through respect for and careful treatment of nature, not through the suppression of its forces.

When destruction multiplies all around me, I instinctively want to create a safe space around myself. To protect everything that is so dear.

The garden, as a symbol of that safe place, has appeared in my art before. In 2023, I created a project called The Gardener, which was dedicated primarily to the person who inhabits the garden. This time, the main subject is the garden itself and all that it contains.

I can also make it sound more literary, more natural, or more suitable for an artist statement.” - Alisa Gorshenina

(translated from Artist’s website by AI)