The grass garden, sealed off from the hustle and bustle of the big city, creates a haven of peace in the Hansa neighbourhood with its tall-growing fauna swaying in the wind and the constantly rippling water feature. The garden leaves little opportunity for surprises: Everything in the square space is arranged in a grid; paving stones, pond, as well as the artificial patches of earth from which the grasses grow. It is ‘in order’, appears perfect: Neither intrusive, nor restrained. An “unpathetic box” (according to the architect Düttmann): Completed, finished, thought through to the end.
For the object staging, the various organs of the garden were put into waiting mode: Projects begun, but nothing is finished. A landscape in the making. Working materials lie around, unfinished installations – the spirit of imperfection hovers over everything. Only the active people are missing, but it seems as if they have just left or are about to return. The “Tired Garden” lies in such a state of limbo.
“Four legends tell of Prometheus,” says Kafka and concludes his short prose thus: “The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily.” Byung Chul-Han opens “Fatigue Society” with reference to this short text, before considering neuronal disease as the guiding principle of our time. His work resonates with a real discomfort in society today: the joyful self-exploitation, the voluntary overload. Work-work balance. The tired garden consists of window grilles that do not close off, but invite. They mark something worth protecting that they immediately neglect by not being able to work either outside or inside.
The fountain inflates, a blockage: the pipe was under pressure and formed a misshapen ulcer that now vegetates organically but motionlessly in the drained basin of the grass garden. Cuts mark the traces of a possible dissection and turn this spatial staging into a petri dish of our constitution.
