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Garden of Reason

Commissioned by The National Trust as part of the inaugural New Trust Art project The Garden of Reason, 28 April – 23 September 2012, curated by Tessa Fitzjohn. Supported by grants from Arts Council England, The Heritage Lottery Fund (£50,000), The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Garden of Reason was a season of contemporary art that took place at Ham House and Garden, London in 2012.

Harold Offeh’s work explored the notion of garden as playground for fantastical masques and entertainments. Arcadia Redesigned referenced 17th-century spectacles staged by architect Inigo Jones and others to provide diversions for the rich and influential to the display of their wealth and power. Offeh’s commission consisted of two main elements:

A series of spectacles were presented to audiences in different locations around and the garden. Each spectacle responded to a particular theme or season: spring, summer, autumn and the Thames were represented. Events featured, references to seasonal, music from composer Henry Purcell and Donna Summer’s 70s disco concept album 4 Seasons of Love.

A second element was a fictional installation of the ‘Ham Hermit and Grotto’ in the kitchen garden. The grotto was a scaled recreation of a rocky cave dwelling, home to the fictional Ham Hermit, played throughout the exhibition by Offeh. The grotto was in situ in the gardens and allowed visitors to enter, escape and find solitude. The hermit and grotto were developed from Offeh’s research into the 17th and 18th phenomena of grand estates with real resident hermits and dwellings as features of the landscape.

'Arcadia Redesigned' / The Garden of Reason had coverage in Art Monthly 362 (Dec / Jan 2012/13) pp10-13: 'Human Nature' by Michael Hampton; brief review in Time Out - http://www.timeout.com/london/art/garden-of-reason; and Telegraph; the catalogue is available online at: http://www.tessafitzjohn.org/archives/category/garden-of-reason