Fostering the Garden

Aesthetics, cultivation and experimentation, models in contemporary planning.

  • The third Janus Summer Symposium at the LeWitt Foundation in Praiano
  • Promoted and curated by Nicola Setari with Giovanna Caputo and Francesca di Nardo
  • May 30th-June 2nd 2008

Fostering the Garden gathers a group of international specialists comprised of experts in the fields of architecture, landscape and agronomy, together with philosophers, curators, artists and writers. Participants come from different european countries—Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Holland—and from the United States.
The broad theme of the garden is dealt with during the symposium in terms of the cultivated garden, the aesthetic garden and the experimental garden, corresponding to the three different ways in which humanity relates to the natural environment. Cultivation has always guaranteed survival. Aesthetical contemplation involves simultaneously the pursuit of meaning through self interrogation and the enjoyment of beauty. Experimentation derives from humanity’s ancestral desire for knowledge, coincident with research into new techniques to increase ecological and agricultural productivity.
In light of the enormous social and technological change that humanity is undergoing, Fostering the Garden is an invitation very different from the one Voltaire offers at the conclusion of Candide to “cultivate your garden”. By starting with the garden, one searches for a conscience in the ongoing processes of globalization.
The ecological problems from which Campania is suffering have brought international attention to the region. It is urgent to give visibility to the examples of landscape preservation and ecological awareness: examples of
protected sites and exemplary gardens may offer a model to other sites in the region.

The participants
Lorenzo Benedetti, curator, Alessandro Bertolotti, writer, Charlotte Bonduel, philosopher, Giovanna Caputo, curator, Bernard Dewulf, writer, Francesca di Nardo, curator, Ettore Favini, artist, Gloria Friedmann, artist, Paolo Giordano, architect, Bertrand Lavier, artist, Olaf Nicolai, artist, Chiara Parisi, curator, Domenico Parisi, scientist, Michel Racine, writer, Marco Scotini, curator, Melania Bugiani, architect, Nicola Setari, philosopher, Chris Starkey, architect, Zac Stevens, architect.


  • Janus 23 is out now with an experimental cover by Olafur Eliasson, special projects by Ivan Moudov, Michael Rakowitz, Alex Cecchetti, while the artist curator section features texts and interviews with Gabriel Kuri and Katerina Gregos, Anish Kapoor and Jean de Loisy, Edith Dekyndt and Charlotte Bonduel, Olaf Nicolai and Lorenzo Benedetti and Eric Van Hove and Marleen Wynants. (colophon / buy a copy )
  • For the theme of this issue Janus plays with the traditional concepts of "white cube" and "black box" and remixes them into"A White Box for a Black Cube". The first is commonly intended as the place for visual arts and the second as the one for theater. Their different dramaturgies of time and space seem ever more often to intertwine, when a great amount of performances and spectacles are being made in museums and galleries and a growing number of visual artists are asked not only to work for theater and opera, but also to make permanent artworks for their spaces.The museum in particular has transformed itself into a place where it is entertaining to go, as opposed to the traditional image of it as one of sacrifice and patience.
  • When we write a "White Box for a Black Cube" we don't mean to make confusion, but hint at maybe an aesthetical paradigm far more successful than is normally admitted. A model which is not only the result of the radical way in which public funding for culture has changes, but moreover is an answer to the evaporation of the statute of the artwork. Visit our website to find out when and where the next presentations of our magazine will be.
  • Subscribe or buy a copy of the new issue. You can also read the editorial and the website will soon feature one of the essays in the issue.
  • The issue 22 of Janus is still available. From this page you have direct links to the index of issue #22, that will be presented in a number of locations in the upcomming months. For more information check out our news page. You can read the colophon of the issue 22, buy a copy or subscribe. The index of issue #21 and #20 are also available, the first was launched in December 2006 and the second in June 2006. The Janus Marathon Team was founded this May and ran the Maastricht Visè half marathon on the 12th of May.  The battle call of the new Janus is: not just for intellectuals if you would like to read the new editorial and see a picture of the team, click here.
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