... the faculty of wonder...
“I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions.
Occasionally, I find an answer.”
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
Garden of Stones and a Thousand Flowers is research project, studies intertwining of different art forms and philosophies by taking as a starting point novel Sophie's World by Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder and work Icelandic conceptual artist Hreinn Fridfinnsson, Hulduklettur (Hidden Rock)
Just as modern physics tries to find a unified field theory, Garden of Stones and a Thousand Flowers builds dialogues between visual art, handicrafts, literature, music, philosophy and science in search of answers to fundamental questions.
The name of the project refers to a Japanese rock garden, often called a Zen Garden and a medieval style known as Millefleurs literally "thousand flowers". It brings together works that explore human relationships with nature in space and time.
Garden of Stones and Thousand Flowers is also considered in the sense of a kindergarten - place where children grow and develop. It provides the interactive participation for children to study philosophy and art.
Irene Sema and Nelli Tanner are Helsinki based photographer, jewellry and visual artists. They share an interest in exploring the way we read and interpret images and sounds in different art forms and life.
The Coastline Paradox as a Metaphor for Research
It is the counterintuitive observation that the coastline of a landmass does not have a well-defined length. This results from the fractal curve-like properties of coastlines.
The measured length of the coastline depends on the method used to measure it and the degree of cartographic generalization.
Since a landmass has features at all scales, from hundreds of kilometers in size to tiny fractions of a millimeter and below, there is no obvious size of the smallest feature that should be taken into consideration when measuring, and hence no single well-defined perimeter to the landmass. Various approximations exist when specific assumptions are made.
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Coastline paradox, 2024
Irene Sema
dialog I 2023 marble
Nelli Tanner
