HEUT’ MACH ICH BLAU. CIANOTIPIAS SOBRE UM JARDIM

 

Workshop at Goethe-Institut Lisbon, Portugal. 23rd of May 2025

 

 

 

 

 

Heute mach’ ich blau. Cianotipias sobre um jardim was a workshop taking place at Goethe-Institut Portugal in Lisbon, together with Kim Anni Bassen — exploring cyanotype as a tool to reflect on different forms of gardens and their (hi)stories, wonders, and ambiguities: plant migration, vegetable vs. leisure garden architecture — all explored through found, visual, and critical text material.

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Here are some bits of conversations that came up during the day, from stories of angry salad gardeners and questions around “exotic” plants and their colonial paths to Portugal, to plant names and kinship, the smell of wind in leaves, 19th-century noble garden aesthetics, and personal encounters with monstera plants in office environments. The garden as an oasis for recovery — a place to read, rest, and study — a garden of leisure and joy, in contrast to agricultural activities and vegetable gardens.

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Who could afford and use this kind of garden? Why don’t we see potatoes growing here? Where do all these plants come from? What stories do they carry? What could a future garden look like? What kind of garden would you dream of?

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After a conversation with Nuno Prates @the_lisboan_gardener about the Goethe-Institut garden, I learned about its shade-giving and secret corners as part of a more “female” design for the women of that time; about which plants arrived by boat from former colonies and became part of Portuguese life, used for food, basketry, brooms, pigments, or as status symbols; about a palm species now rare in Lisbon due to disease; and about sweet orange trees tracing back to Moorish times, now misleadingly associated with a Portuguese origin — the Portuguese word laranja comes from Arabic نَارَنْج (nāranj), Persian نارنگ (nârang), and Sanskrit नारङ्ग (nāraṅga). It was fantastic to understand the plants in this particular garden more deeply and to learn about Lisbon’s garden cultures and the beauty of smart garden architecture.

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It was also a joy to see so many people during the workshop exploring and celebrating the sunny days in the garden, while experimenting with the technique and exchanging ideas about gardens.

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fotos by Beatriz Pequeno @beatriz.pequeno