The Impossible Garden is a site specific installation at the Botanical Garden in Reykjavík which uses hypothetical folklore and speculation to open portals to worlds that exist simultaneously with our own, and a map to navigate them.
The weather conditions in Iceland are harsh and the landscapes barren, not traditionally well suited to a thriving and diverse flora, so the idea of a garden in Reykjavík full of foreign plants is already a surreal experience. This project started by looking at the list of all the plants that they tried to grow but eventually failed at the botanical garden - an enormous Impossible Garden much larger than the one we can physically experience, but that I claim still exists in a different time and a different realm.
For this project I narrowed it down to two gardens: one which serves as a portal through time and another one through space. The portal through space is made up of plants that they did eventually manage to grow at the botanical, but they have no explanation as to why since these plants are impossible to grow anywhere else in Iceland. The portal through time is made of beautiful plants which haven’t managed to survive yet, but will thrive all across the country if the summers become just 1 degree hotter. A bittersweet window into a future I hope we never achieve.
All the plant images are embroidery patterns. Feel free to embroider them, tell their stories, and build your own impossible gardens.
