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Artist and designer Frank Bruggeman created the spatial design for the exhibition Dissident Gardens.

_Dissident Gardens_ is based on the idea of the garden as the quintessential place where our desire to control our surroundings conflicts with our fascination for the wild, untamed forces of nature. In Dissident Gardens, technology and ecology are seen as systems that are at odds, yet also depend on each other. Het Nieuwe Instituut aims to show how the two systems have become interwoven, leading to a radically new approach to the relationship between culture and nature. This addresses current issues such as sustainability, innovative materials, the transformation of the designer's role and the domain of the design disciplines, and the impact of technology on our lives and the environment in which we live.

Dissident Gardens consists of four sections: Biotopia, on designers who work with living organisms and materials; Pleasure Parks, on the design of recreational homes and parks and their relationship to their natural surroundings; Gardening Mars, on research on, and opportunities for, the 'terraforming' of Mars; and Smart Farming, on the automation of the Dutch landscape. These sections are connected to each another in an installation featuring an enormous mountain in Het Nieuwe Instituut's main gallery. "A mountain or hill in the Netherlands soon becomes artificial," says Frank Bruggeman. "Only in the south do you get a few gently rolling hills." This makes the form a good match for the exhibition, which deals with the theme of nature versus culture.

The initial idea for the design of Dissident Gardens was a French formal garden with its various parterres, he explains: "But everything fell into place once the idea of the mountain had emerged." The mountain is made of heat-expanded clay pellets. These porous pebbles are used, for example, in the pot-plant industry, but also in road construction where they prevent the wet Dutch soil subsiding. The Smart Farming presentation containers are inserted halfway into the hill. Reflective walls inside evoke an infinite underground greenhouse system. The colour of the clay pellets is also appropriate for Mars, the red planet. The residue of the clay pellets that is left behind in the factory kilns is used to represent the rocky Martian landscape.

"Sometimes you think up a concept and there are unexpected bonuses once you start to implement it," says Bruggeman. "For instance, Pleasure Parks turned out to offer a view of the mountain structure, an image that blends nicely with the many scale models in that presentation. The collaboration with Bauko Landstra's construction team was really smooth, which allowed me to anticipate fortuitous opportunities like this one." The final installation also relates to his work as an artist, he adds: "I look for contrasts and oppositions. Untrammelled nature versus manifestly artificial elements. The mountain too is somehow really primal and natural, and yet at the same time totally artificial."

The installation Global Flower announced the exhibition in the foyer of Het Nieuwe Instituut. Every two weeks, a different Dutch floriculture product was the centre of attention there. "We don't always notice it, but flowers like the rose, gerbera and lily are constantly evolving as a designed product," says Bruggeman. He displayed the most recent cultivars of these varieties, which are grown more and more independently of the seasons. "The trend at the moment is towards more 'natural' products," Bruggeman explains. "But they are still cultivated in a highly artificial way." To highlight this fact, he always added a plant that grows wild to the installation, such as cow parsley in the spring and rosehips in the autumn.

The art of Frank Bruggeman is inspired by his fascination with plant life and the botanical world. In objects and installations, he explores the distinction between botanical culture and nature. It is often hard to draw the line between these two, in the same way that a landscape may appear to be quite natural, while actually being the work of human hands. In his work, Bruggeman questions ideas about the use of indigenous and exotic plants and the romantic pursuit of purity.

Website Frank Brugggeman