Whirligig Garden Harborfront Centre Toronto 2002 (hopefully a permanent garden)

The garden tells of childhood fears and its related desire for security by integrating whirligig figures in a garden. Demonic clowns, their arms reaching out, chase the children from a frightening, twisted garden. Arms flailing, legs spinning, the whirligig children run away. They must cross a river of flax and lavender on the silver mounds of artemisia, to reach their mother who waits in the tender garden. Time lapse fashion, we also see the children quiet before her. The visual opposition of frightening vs. tender plants will be echoed with sounds and smells and emphasized with light . The terrifying garden will have the dry rustling sounds of the money plants, chaotic shapes and violent colours. In the tender garden, the mother will have small bells on her outstretched arms to summon her children. (lily of the valley and campanulas echo) . However, even though we appear to have our happy ending it is precarious - the ominous and twisted garden rises insistently in the manner of things feared, framing our view of happiness. The pressure of wild forms to take over the delicate, makes every garden a metaphor for the Òfragility of goodnessÓ.