Doing Nothing Garden

Beijing artist Song Dong creates a potted landscape for Oi!, which is essentially an accumulation of organic material and rubble from the community. The project fits in with the natural environment by growing native grasses and flowers. This integrated artificial landscape raises the question: can doing nothing lead to creating something?

Build a “Doing Nothing Garden”, let it develop, sustain it. The uncertainties of the “Doing Nothing Garden” at Oi! form the spirit of this project.

Anything that does not violate legal terms can be done in this ‘Freedom Ground’, a piece of land enclosed by a simply designed ring to set it apart from the outside. The traces and waste of the free actions conducted here will be collected and covered with soil on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year. Seeds will be sown and watered, with ‘freedom’ acting as the ‘fertiliser’ or ‘poison’ that becomes the foundation of growth.

The newly grown garden can be a new ‘Freedom Ground’ for ‘farming’ and ‘harvesting’. This is the spirit behind the notions of doing something, doing nothing, wasting something and wasting nothing.

Playing, eating, reading, practising, performing, orating, creating and exhibiting, demonstrating or battling – everything is possible inside the ‘Ring of Freedom’…

Supported by: Pace Gallery