Jade Kievits

I have this love for the natural world. It has been with me ever since my childhood. When I was little I spent a lot of my time in my grandfather’s garden, which he built and tended to with his own hands. I remember him pointing out every plant and tell me about their characteristics. My love and respect for the natural world was born in this space. His attitude towards the natural world was contagious and gave me the attention, respect and tenderness I still hold today.

For my grandfather, wonder lived in the act of gardening. In composing a space through harmony, depth and form. For me these elements emerge through the act of looking. In the forms created by the natural world, and through the play of light.‘The Looking Garden’ returns to my grandfather’s garden in memory, and to what it taught me: a way of looking that is becoming increasingly rare. In this project I work with my own black and white photographs alongside the vivid and colorful archive images taken by my grandmother, of that same garden in which I spent so much time growing up.

In today’s society, we are increasingly losing touch with the natural world. We are losing our attention, our willingness to slow down, to look and to see. With this project, I offer that inherited perspective, suggesting that wonder lives in the act of looking itself.