Secret Gardens

Secret gardens are the internal places nourished by all the women in my family, an unspoken and matrilineal inheritance of strength and personal steadfastness, an ability to return to ourselves and find solitude and peace. It can be difficult to grow up with a mother who has this secret place, but we have each found it a pivotal place to grow into ourselves.

I wanted to capture the internal nature of these worlds, and how they have their own source of light and also contain shadows, fragility and strength. The boxes have a strong, sturdy membrane, however those who are permitted may enter through beauty and catch glimpses of the fragility inside. The skeleton leaves which catch every breeze or breath and cast shadows on the wall.

The front of each box is a drawing I made of my mother and I’s favourite plants – mine are the plants I was surrounded with as a child growing up in rural Gloucestershire; wild gooseberries and strawberries and garlic, oak, hazelnut, deadnettle. Mum’s are more delicate; woodruff, hyssop, daffodils, feverfew.

I was interested to explore whether it is possible to come to terms with the inaccessibility of certain parts of my female lineage. I have come to admire our strength in guarding our inner peace and sanctuary, even as it has meant that we will never know each other truly. I have also realised how much the same instinct – to keep something secret for myself – has allowed me to survive in providing somewhere to retreat to, something precious and fragile yet strong and boundaried to nurture and tend to.