CREATIVE GARDEN 2025

A Journey of Material Exploration, Community Rituals, and Slow Creation

When I launched the Creative Garden in July 2025, I imagined a space where making could become a form of slow resistance. A place to reconnect with materials, neighbours, and small gestures of care. What unfolded over the following months became something much bigger: a collective exploration of sustainable practices, a shared studio-laboratory, and the foundation for my final installation, now presented in the exhibition Temporarily Out of Space at Treehouse NDSM.

A Living Laboratory of Materials

The project began with a simple question: What can we create when we let the garden lead the way?
From this idea came a full program of workshops focused on circularity, experimentation, and the poetry of low-impact making:

• Paper Making — transforming scraps, petals, fibres and discarded packaging into new textured sheets

• Ecoprinting — revealing the pigments of flowers, leaves and food waste directly onto fabric

• Coffee Clay — sculpting with recycled coffee grounds

• Repurposing & Assemblage — turning plastic, wire, textiles and found objects into new forms

• Preserves & Food Memories — a workshop dedicated to traditional and plant-based preservation techniques, exploring how to store flavours, colours, and scents as a metaphor for protecting stories and seasons

The “preserves workshop” in July became one of the most emotional sessions: we cooked together, prepared jars using summer ingredients, and discussed the philosophy behind self-production — how preserving is a ritual of care, a way to hold onto something precious in times of change.

Adopt a Box — Inviting the Neighbourhood

To bring the project beyond the studio, I launched an open call inviting residents to “adopt a box”: each person received a small container to transform into a tiny world, a message, or a personal story. Some became sculptures, others landscapes, others intimate poetic notes. This created a beautiful bridge between the Creative Garden and the surrounding community.

From Experiments to Installation — Building the Wardrobe of Lost Seasons

Throughout the summer, all materials produced in the workshops — from ecoprinted swatches to failed clay pieces, pigments, textures, fibres and even food-coloured scraps — were catalogued and stored.

They all became part of the research phase for my final installation, Wardrobe of Lost Seasons, now exhibited at Treehouse. In October, participants were invited to use these same materials to build their own miniature “worlds” during the closing workshop, creating a collective constellation of responses.

Opening Night — Tasting Time

During the opening of Temporarily Out of Space last night, we opened the jars we prepared in July.
It was a small but meaningful moment: tasting the preserved flavours of summer while standing in front of the finished installation. A full circle.

People loved the preserves — especially because they carried the memory of that first workshop. I also took the chance to explain the basics of self-production: how to preserve safely, how to reduce waste, and how these techniques can become acts of empowerment and ecological storytelling.

The Final Installation

Inside a full-scale wardrobe, glowing from within, the materials harvested throughout the Creative Garden return transformed:

• floating translucent forms

• paper butterflies

• ecoprinted cloths

• branches wrapped in sculpted coffee clay

• tiny jars containing pigments, textures and preserved memories

The wardrobe becomes a portal into lost climates, shifting seasons and fragile imaginaries.
A sanctuary for what is disappearing — and for what we can still make together.

A Community in Bloom

Creative Garden 2025 grew into a community practice of care, imagination and slow creation.
Thank you to everyone who joined, experimented, cooked, printed, sculpted, questioned, and shared the journey.

The Garden will grow again in 2026 — with new seeds and new stories.