Features
27th April 2009
Brompton Borders
16 – 25 May
Brompton Borders celebrates a contemporary vision of urban nature and hidden green spaces in the Brompton Design District, an area of London renowned for its historic parks, gardens and squares.
The initiative will begin on May 16 with the design district’s iconic shops (Few and Far, Skandium and The Conran Shop) creating mini-gardens in windows and outside spaces. Restaurants (Bibendum, Le Pain Quotidien and Daphne’s) will provide special menus for the duration of Brompton Borders, ending on May 23 bank holiday weekend with a shopping event in Brompton Quarter and Brompton Cross combined with a secret garden festival by artist collective, House of Fairy Tales, in a disused garage.
Analogies between art and gardening were highlighted in the early 20th Century by English landscape artist Gertrude Jekyll, who was influenced by the Arts and Craft movement. Jekyll was renowned for her appreciation of both natural and formal styles, emphasizing the importance of structure, proportion, colour, scent and texture in gardens of almost any scale.
The children’s novel The Secret Garden, written by Frances Hodgson Burnett and published in 1911, uses the metaphor of a garden as a way of describing safe place within one’s surroundings. Examining these themes of rebirth, love, innocence and the power of nature, this classic story parallels Jekyll’s romanticism with gardening and its milieu. Innovative cultural company Arts Co asked contemporary artists to respond to these notions of the garden by employing the same approaches practiced by Jekyll; exploring poetry in colour and form.
Hidden spaces in the Brompton Design District will be taken over by artists El and Abe and House of Fairytales while the Brompton Borders Hub and Literary Garden will reveal Lyndall Phelps’s indoor interpretation of Jekyll’s concepts therefore creating an interactive environment. The artistic programme, developed by Arts Co, aims to bring new life to outdoor spaces and inspire education relating to the possibilities of creativity and play in the fine art of horticulture in Brompton for residents and visitors.
Brompton Borders will involve broad spectrum of partners: artists, gardeners, museums, restaurants and shops to develop a holistic profile for the area. By encouraging partners to think about outdoor spaces, the Brompton Design District will encourage experimentation within the comparatively conventional arena of garden design through cross fertilisation with arts and design.
The Brompton Design District will become an animated series of secret spaces and herbaceous borders in the area that originally inspired Jekyll many years ago. The Brompton Design District, initiated by South Kensington Estates and local partners, stretches from the Serpentine Gallery to the Saatchi Gallery and encompasses South Kensington, Brompton Cross and Brompton Quarter.
Key Dates
Brompton Borders: 16 – 24 May
Press and visitors day: Tuesday 19th May
Shopping Event: Saturday 23 May
House of Fairytales Festival: Saturday 23 May and procession of mobile garden to Tate Modern on the 24 May
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Brompton Borders cultural programme by Arts Co
Brompton’s Secret Garden
The Car Park, 2 North Terrace, SW3 2BB
16 – 25 May
Artists: El & Abe
Brompton Secret Garden Festival
The Car Park, 2 North Terrace, SW3 2BB
Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 May
Artists: House of Fairy Tales
‘There is always a pretty little play in pretending.’ Jekyll.
For Jekyll, the garden was paradise for a small girl; her vivid childhood memories never faded and were the foundation of her later achievements. The old car park space will be transformed into a Secret Garden, full of magical herbaceous possibilities. On 23 May, the Secret Garden Festival by House of Fairytales will celebrate creativity and play in the fine art of horticulture (including plant potting, face painting and art projects). On 24 May, a huge wheeled garden procession will set off from Brompton Design District, SW3 and arrive at the Tate Modern, SE1.
Brompton Borders Literary Garden
29 Thurloe Place, SW7 2HQ
16 – 25 May
Artists: Lyndall Phelps and Liz Neal
‘A garden is a grand teacher.’ Jekyll.
The relationship between landscape and well-being is a recurring theme for Jekyll and in The Secret Garden. Using the garden motif, Burnett explores the healing power inherent in living things and the natural environment. Jekyll’s approach to gardening was passionate and revolutionary – her writings, teachings, theories and intellectual study of plants sought to unlock the poetry and romance of the garden. The Literary Garden will host a library of gardening, horticulture and history books, with maps of Jekyll’s gardens in Brompton and throughout the UK. A talk by Michael Tooley, an expert on Jekyll’s work will take place on 19 May (limited places).
Garden Skips: Secret Borders
Around Brompton Design District
16 – 25 May
Artists: Various
Jekyll’s primary teaching around the use of colour was the importance of harmony; but harmony achieved through a careful balance of contrasts. Her name is often associated with the development of herbaceous borders, arranged and grouped in colours. The Secret Garden is concerned with the idea of secrets. The secret of the existence of the garden itself is the most significant – suggesting that the content of the garden is not the most important, but the way that one thinks about it. Planted skips by students from the Royal College of Art act as secret borders throughout Brompton, giving a different view on the garden within our immediate environment.
Brompton Borders shopping event partners
The Admiral Codrington, B&B Italia, Bonpoint, Brompton Bar and Grill, The Conran Shop, Coco De Mer, Daphne’s, Few and Far, Le Pain Quotidien, LK Bennet, Ralph Lauren, Robert Frew, Skandium, SNOG.
For more details and images please contact Anna Stewart astewart@ske.org / 020 7761 6420.