October 2020

The uncultivated field made us think of an artwork by American artist John Knight. The work is essentially a large circular garden bed in front of the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, which is no longer tended and is left to it’s own devices. The title of the work, The Right to be Lazy, draws it’s name from an essay published in 1883 by Karl Marx’s son-in-law, Paul Lafargue. In the essay he argues heavily against conservative, religious and even socialist ideas of work, instead championing laziness and creativity as being the most important catalysts for human progress.

We have always been attracted to laziness and disheartened by the popular assertion that productivity is the way to measure a successful life.

During our visits to Kandos and the surrounding towns we have been be looking at cultivated and uncultivated garden spaces while taking into account; the way human needs and aesthetics have been centred in the garden ecosystem, the practice of inserting objects into gardens which can become artefacts, the magic of soil and the underworld, different scales of time and the idea that some plants are useful/good/beautiful and others are weeds/bad.

As well as finding a place to make work, there was also lots of great spots to be found for playing. Some very kind and generous locals took us up to a rocky outlook above the town and we found an incredible abandoned park that would have been perfect for our Out of Bounds work. The town itself feels a little lost in time and there are lots of 'edges' and places that are not quite formed or specified.