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The Interactive Garden

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The Interactive Garden

by Angela Hijjas

From The Malaysian Naturalist, vol. 52 no. 2.

Gardening is essentially a manipulation of the natural environment. We elect to save or eliminate, plant and nourish or neglect, and the result is a man made garden. For the naturalist, there is the added objective of nurturing as much of nature as possible, and this includes species other than plants. I have managed to educate the rest of the family that one does not have to kill snakes, bats or lizards; they do more good than harm, but at the same time I keep a close eye on the new puppy to make sure she isn’t taken by the biawak, the large monitor lizard that lives near the pond.

A large biawak, or water monitor, on the steps by the pond.

Birds win people over much more easily and do not evoke the same primal fear as reptiles. The brilliant flashes of colour as they swoop through the garden and fill another dimension with song ringing back and forth arouse a reaction in all humans, whether interested in the natural world or not.

I have perhaps thirty varieties of birds in my garden and they provide me with the greatest delight. The largest is probably the crested serpent-eagle, although the fish owl would be a close second. The eagles regularly launch themselves on the heat generated from a large paved area by the house, whistling to each other as they glide the thermals. The fish owl’s tawny beige is noticeable in low light and can sometimes be seen perching on the house beams over the fish pond or in the top of a flowering durian waiting for bats. Much more common are the white breasted waterhens who inhabit the pools and drains and are fascinating to watch as they hide their coal black young in bushy cover while both parents hunt for food. They breed prolifically, but numbers never seem to increase so the monitor lizards must be harvesting their share. These interactions between species make the life of a garden so interesting and reminiscent of our own lost habitat that we must unknowingly miss.

My early garden planting failed to consider other life groups so much, keen as I was to plant a forest of dipterocarps, the tallest fo rest giants. Unfortunately, most of these huge trees take years to mature and the seasons of flowering and fruiting are so irregular and unpredictable that they cannot be relied upon by wildlife for a regular source for food. Perhaps the plants that encourage birds most would be from the Ficus family, they fruit early and constantly and are sought by bats, mammals and birds. Unfortunately most planted by landscapers tend to be hybridized varieties that don’t fruit, wasting a great opportunity. Feeding animals can make a mess, but if they are well established they can also help with insect and pest control. With more predators to keep down the pests, plants and people suffer less from insect damage than they would otherwise.

Swifts and bats alternate between day and night harvesting flying insects, and the change of guard at dusk is remarkably precise: one never sees swifts in the sky with bats, nor is there a moment when there is nothing flying and swooping.

A reticulated python, in the well at Rimbun Dahan. Pythons help control the rat population.

The naturalist’s garden has to develop on the awareness that we share our space with other creatures. I may own the land, but other residents predate my claim so allowances have to be made. All species are an asset in one way or another, even the weeds in the vegetable garden can camouflage tender species. Snakes keep down the rat population and birds harvest insects and fruit, spreading seeds and fertilizing as they go as well as providing an important dynamic aesthetic. The final result may seem a bit chaotic but a growing understanding of the interactions greatly broadens the definition of ‘gardening.’

The birds are definitely the star performers. A huge colony of yellow vented bulbuls nests happily in a grove of red sealing wax palms and sends squadrons out each morning. A more individual character is the pied triller chooses to call from under a roof where its voice is effectively amplified, as it (presumably male!) competes with its own kind for dominance. The black-naped orioles offer flashes of brilliant yellow as they carol and swoop through the trees, and the white-throated kingfisher provides the contrasting blue, accompanied by its typical raucous shriek. A seasonal visitor is the tiny blue-eared kingfisher, arriving in pairs and identifying itself by its whistle but difficult to see. Only once have I seen the stork-billed kingfisher. Two varieties of woodpeckers and bee eaters, owls, swifts, spider hunters and sunbirds add to the population.

There are many shy small varieties that we occasionally glimpse but can rarely identify, and they tend to be eclipsed by the louder more spectacular species. Seeing a pair of racket tailed drongos cavorting around an old durian tree as their tails wove patterns in the air is an indelible memory. We also have a family of hill mynas, only visitors before but now resident, whose calls whistle and echo throughout. I occasionally see malkohas and the greater coucal, the former very discrete, the latter lumbering through the foliage in a rather ungainly manner. Often we get swooping formations of long tailed parakeets, shrieking loudly, and reminiscent of my ‘great parrot homeland,’ as David Attenborough called Australia.

Recently I visited Endau Rompin and was overwhelmed by the vegetation in the forest, especially seeing trees that I have as saplings and being able to identify the mature specimens. Bird life, though, was not visible although very much in evidence from the morning calls; the forest was too dense for a good view. A well established garden can be very rewarding for bird watching, especially if it is close to forested areas. Recently a sighting of a vigorous patch of brilliant red feathers sent me scrambling for the bird book; I fear I saw a trogon, an inhabitant of primary forest, and I can only surmise why it was in my garden. I have not seen it since and fear for its welfare, but I guess I must focus on what I can provide and keep planting as much as possible.

So many ills of living in a developed society seem to stem from losing touch with natural surroundings in terms of sharing one’s habitat with other species. Whether it is the occasional whiff of perfume from a flowering tree, the sight of a biawak catching the morning sun on a coconut trunk, the texture of a leaf or the flash of a bird swooping past, the experience tends to place one’ s sense of being into primal mode; another part of the brain takes over when recognition takes place.

The solely urban habitat does not seem varied enough for healthy populations of birds or humans. To belong to a place that i s sufficiently diverse and to interact with our environment seems to be intrinsic to the healthy ‘lifestyle’. How I hate that word, but perhaps it reflects the loss of our own habitat, to be replaced by a mere style, a loss that takes its toll on us as much as it does on the rest of creation.

Naturalist Gardening Tips: I have had trouble establishing a Cassia fistula for its wonderful cascades of golden flowers. Every time a new show of leaves sprout, white moths appear and lay eggs. Within days the leaves are destroyed by caterpillars. For some reason the garden birds have shown no interest in grooming the tree or catching the butterflies, but a recent innovation at organic pest control was to introduce a nest of kerengga, the large red ants that inhabit fruit trees. The ants attack the caterpillars and although there is still some damage, the trees are doing much better.

To move a kerengga nest requires determination, as they bite. Our method is to pull it off the tree with a fruit harvesting hook, and tie it in a plastic bag (as quickly as possible!) Hang the bag in the caterpillar infested tree and then break it open. The ants will quickly establish their territory. Should you wish to remove the ants, the nest can be burned by tying oils oaked rags on a bamboo pole, and setting it alight under the nest.

Birds are just as useful, but they cannot depend on a few plant species as food supply is too cyclical. A good variety of birds requires a wide variety of plants. The booklet produced by WWF Malaysia, ‘Bring Back the Birds’, is an excellent guide on what species will attract birds, either because they provide nesting materials, fruit or insects on which the birds can feed.

Helen Crawford

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Helen Crawford

Ahmad Osni Peii

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Ahmad Osni Peii
Pak Ahmad and his creation.
Pak Ahmad and his creation Sakinah.

Indonesian sculptor Ahmad Osni Peii was resident at Rimbun Dahan for 6 months in ’99 when he returned to Southeast Asia after living in the States for 40 years.

While he was at Rimbun Dahan, he embarked on the creation of several large-scale outdoor sculptures in painted aluminium, which were produced with the help of a team at a studio off-site.

“…This see-through spatio-shell structure is not mathematically formulated as many may assume.  It is simply an intuitive discovery, so to speak, in mathematical sense for I believe all forms created knowingly or unknowingly are not absent of judiciously purposeful plan unless unconsciously or deliberately done, in other words unaccountably playful, cynical or whimsical.  This is not so with my work.  It is a medium discovered, precise and fit, I think, for the theme of ‘formal allegory’, a visual suggestion on harmonious relationship, a Gestalt, between ‘things’ as a whole in unity, rhythm, order, contrast, balance, proportion, to name a few, just as one would reflect on or appreciate the unarbitrary composition of all immeasurably diverse living things interactively created in nature…”

Sakinah (above and below) was the first large outdoor sculpture by resident artist Ahmad Osni Peii to be installed at Rimbun Dahan, in the Bulatan Plong in 1999. Two other pieces — Geliat Nusantara (red piece, below) and Gelang Serai (white piece, below) — were installed in 2005. All three are made of painted aluminium.

Adam Aitken

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Australian poet Adam Aitken undertook an Asialink Residency at Rimbun Dahan in 1998. Adam spent his residency working on his poetry and researching Malaysian cabaret. The resulting collection, Romeo and Juliet in Subtitles, was published to critical acclaim by Brandl and Schlesinger.

During his residency, he also wrote the catalogue essay for the exhibition of fellow Asialink artist Matt Calvert.

Adam Aitken is a NSW based poet and fiction writer who has had two books of poetry published, Letter to Marco Polo and In One House. He was also the associate editor of Australian literary journal HEAT.

View the artist’s website: adamaitken.wordpress.com

Mutalib Mann

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Mutalib Mann

mutalibMutalib Mann was the Malaysian resident artist of the Malaysia-Australia Visual Arts Residency at Rimbun Dahan in 1998. The exhibition of his works took place in the Underground Gallery at Rimbun Dahan from 28 August to 27 September 1998.

Mutalib Mann is an artist based in London, born in Alor Setar, Malaysia. He was trained at The MARA University of Technology, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and The London College of Printing in Graphic Design.

Mathew Calvert

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Mathew Calvert

Glass_shards1

mattTasmanian sculptor Mathew Calvert was an Asialink resident artist at Rimbun Dahan in 1998.

Curriculum Vitae

Born Smithton Tasmania, 1969

Exhibition

1997      Poets and Painters, Dick Betts Gallery, Hobart

1996   Survivability, Hobart GPO

Pulp, Burnie, Regional Art Gallery

1995   Bubble Rap, M&B Motors, New Cross, London

1994   Selected Works from the 1993 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarships, Adelaide

1993      Group 16 Exhibition, Long Gallery, Hobart

1991      National Student Exhibition, Exhibition Building, Melbourne

1990      Insitu Fine Arts Gallery, University of Tasmania

Residencies

1998      Asialink Rimbun Dahan Malaysia

1994      McCulloch Studio, Cite International des Arts, Paris

Commmissions

1997      Art for Public Buildings Scheme, TAFE Training Facility Prince of Wales Bay, Hobart

1991      Installation for Fletcher Construction at the ANZ Centre, Hobart

Scholarships and Awards

1992      Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship

Dean’s Role of Honour, University of Tasmania

Education

1995      MA Goldsmith’s College, University of London

1993      Graduated with Honours (First Class)

1994      1992   Bachelor of Fine Arts, Tasmanian School of Art, University of Tasmania

matt1

Notes on the Asialink Rimbun Dahan Residency Exhibition

by Adam Aitken

Kuang Malaysia
28th August to 27 September 1998

In the six months Tasmanian sculptor Mathew Calvert has resided at Rimbun Dahan, his glass monoliths have attracted the attention of his fellow artists and visitor alike.  Within the Balinese Hindu-inspired water temple surroundings of Rimbun Dahan’s guest-house studio, these pieces are quasi-architectural forms which reflect the on-going modernist desire for pure clean forms, that comment upon eclectic post-modernity and the trace of Asian ideals inherent in their setting.

Each sculpture is composed of up to a thousand pieces of broken plate glass formerly used as building material which Calvert salvaged from a nearby kampung dump (below).  These pieces tell the story of their own salvation from the melancholy fate of rejected industrial materials.  Each piece extends our perceptions of how these materials can be used and viewed, as objects with intelligence and meanings they would not have enjoyed had they fulfilled their original utilitarian purpose as glass for high rise.

matt4

Each piece attests to the artist’s ritual of collection, cleaning and sorting the colour and thickness of each single shard before its actual placement. Such a process requires the will to discipline the chaos of the dump, to arrest the process of decay, to rescue perfectly usable material from industry’s unthinking wastage. Each piece yearns to be something spiritually complete, an ideal which an industrialising landscape struggles to realise.

From the detritus of a boom gone bust Calvert has transformed the ugliness of broken 10 millimetre plate glass into things conventionally beautiful on the outside, but haunting and threatening inside, a solid oblong and two “sarcophagi’.  Each piece seems to mourn at the unmarked grave of an industrial disaster.  Over the largest piece hangs a billboard sized back lit photograph of a landmark familiar to the KL commuter, a large abandoned skeleton of what could have been just another condominium.  Its bare stairwells and lack of cladding reveal the emptiness of real-estate denuded of its “face”, its loss of status as well as the evidence of KL’s suddenly arrested modernisation.  Through its empty floors one can view bare laterite hills and the transient outlands of the shabby city fringe.  The building has colonised what was once a useful, perhaps picturesque space with its own semi-rural complexities of people, space, work and environment.

matt2This juxtaposition of image and glass pike is a reflexive gesture and a reanalysis of the urban environment, as well as a poignant commentary on the history of all overreaching development.  A wan fluorescence lights this edifice t0 failed vision, each piece emanating the same milky-white pallor of transience, decay, vacancy.  Twentieth century modernity seemed to promise a simple mode of being, but is this  an empty promise after all, a conceptual dead end?

The material to a certain extent has dictated Calvert’s choice of form, and every shard has been placed carefully to achieve a layer-cake of fractured light and resonance.  Through judicious placement of each shard, Calvert has captured both the beauty and the ugliness of glass, which lies in its unpredictable nature:  two perfectly flat surfaces, but the edge can be either ruler-straight, or jagged and chaotic depending how the sheet breaks.

Like Petronas Towers, the viewer is astonished at the weighty impact of something so abstract, single minded, and virtually colourless.  But Calvert’s pieces are ironic commentaries on ideals of giantism, purity and perfection.  Like the generic office tower of curtain glass the surfaces of these sculptures shine with autonomy, and a power expressed through total dominance of medium.

matt5Most of the shards have had minimal but intensive handling, with no intentional breakage.  The edges of each fragment are aligned in perpendiculars, each a brick in the wall that might go on forever if the artist had given full rein to his obsession.  In “Recovery” (right), the viewer, from a confident position of privilege, seems to be walking around disciplined walls of glass, only to find this complacency shaken on looking down into a menacing shark’s mouth of broken edges.

Glass is fragile yet potentially dangerous to the flesh.  Each piece says, “come and view me, but keep your distance!”

The paradox of glass is the fact that it is both solid and transparent, and each piece exploits this double identity.  There are no false bottoms or hollow spaces in “Platform” yet the sarcophagus hints at containing the organic trace of life (below).  But what life?  Does the oblong bury a living thin, an essence of life?  Like Narcissus, we gaze from Rimbun Dahan’s soft watery surrounding, we run aground o the force of these surfaces.  The viewer apprehends the work as a sublime force, both beautiful and terrifying; it promises everlasting life for itself, more permanent and immutable than us.  It refers to a technological future which is frightening, because the abandoned building signifies the incompletion of human creativity and our loss over control.  The abandoned structure will never know the warmth and familiarity of human activity, and is haunted by the disquietude of ghosts.

matt3Ross Wolfe, director of the Samstag Program wrote of Calvert’s early work as being in the nature of “a barricade which assaults and offends the aesthetic, rendering itself unapproachable through gross physical attributes alone.  It’s spirit is open.  As art, it is naked and vulnerable” (Samstag catalogue 1994). In this installation Calvert has disciplined his earlier sense of violence and grossness.  Perhaps these pieces carry a new subliminal message:  that meaning lies beyond cliches of economic rationalism.  It’s wastefulness, is revealed, when the “used” must pay as much as the user in terms of lost space, lost greenery and blotted out horizons.  One question Calvert’s work asks is whether the broken and rejected junk of a throw-away culture can be redeemed.  Calvert’s pieces make us look at the piece itself, and contemplate the labour that makes it a thing in itself with its own aesthetic value, but they also express the human yearning for permanence.  It is also art that risk ugliness and generates a slight feeling of repulsion and alienation one much feel when confronted by effective political art.  These sculptures, born of the scrap heap, are perhaps windows, or more mysteriously looking-glasses for those who can read their destiny, but all they reveal is the law of their own grim presence, one a lot less illusory and therefore more strikingly truthful than the vision of “development” has every quite promised.

 

Adam Aitken has published two books of poetry, he is associate editor of “HEAT”, the Australian literary journal and was the Asialink Writer in Residency at Rimbun Dahan during Matt Calvert’s residency.

This is an Asialink project assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia council, its funding and advisory body;  Arts Tasmania and the Australian High Commission, Kuala Lumpur.

Plant Indigenous

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Plant Indigenous

by Angela Hijjas

With the accelerated loss of forest habitats gardeners can try to make a difference to the survival of birds and other small creatures by selecting indigenous species to enrich urban habitats. Most Malaysians only have small gardens or make do with a few pots on a balcony, so making the planting choice is critical, plants should be an appropriate size and be ‘interesting’ to human and animal alike.

The joy of gardening is not merely ‘growing’ plants and savoring their flowers. Living with plants is about seeing the wider world as birds catch pollinating insects and collect fruit, or butterflies and moths feed on nectar, as well as the shade, perfume, colour and texture of plants that we particularly enjoy. Sharing a garden with other species gives us a real sense of our place on earth.

Malaysia has some of the greatest biodiversity of species known anywhere in the world, but we are in danger of losing much of it before we even know about it. The easiest way to learn something of this richness is to live with some of these plants, read about them and observe. Enriching the soil with kitchen waste and watering when necessary give us an active role, but humanity is part of a much larger scheme that we appreciate better as we share our space with other species.

The plant offered for sale to raise funds for MNS on World Environment Day ‘98 is Murraya paniculata (above), kemuning or Mock Orange. This single example provides lessons in Malaysia’s culture, history and the diversity of life. It is a shrub or small tree, of the same family as the curry leaf plant, that is occasionally seen wild in the drier parts of the north and on the east coast, or on limestone hills. Because of the fragrance of its flowers it is often planted in kampong gardens. The dense erect leaves resemble citrus, and the yellow root wood is favoured for making kris handles because of its beautiful figuring. The name apparently is derived from this yellow colouring, kemuning from kuning or yellow.

Kemuning has medicinal uses as well. An infusion of the leaves is included in a tonic for ‘young women’s irregularities’, or a decoction of the leaves may be used for toothache. The flowers used to be sold in the markets to perfume women’s hair, much as jasmine is sold today. Their fragrance, particularly in the evening, is magnificent and attracts pollinating insects. The red berries are relished by birds and bats.

As a garden species, kemuning makes an excellent single or hedged specimen for screening that can be heavily pruned with no ill effects. It quickly generates new growth and a flush of flowers if there is generous watering and composting after the cut-back. It is not attacked by munching insects, never needs chemical intervention and possibly protects tender species planted nearby.

By learning about Malaysia’s own plants we learn to recognise the individuals and families that make up the primary and secondary forests. Unique plants help us develop a sense of place which will be all important in the coming age of globalisation when standardisation will diminish the particular for the sake of world wide uniformity. To understand our own place in the universe means to appreciate the uniqueness of this particular land and have a strong sense of belonging here.

It is mainly an awareness of plants and landscape that ensure this continuity. The hillside kampongs shaded by tall fruit trees interspersed by riverine padi fields, much of which is already lost, the miles of rubber and oil palm estates and the forested hills as a backdrop, are a landscape made of the geography of plants. Place names in Malaysia are generally named after plants or characteristic geographic features. Street names follow this tradition, but rarely today is the named tree included in the landscaping. With the rush for foreign/exotic species such as traveler’s palms (from Madagascar), and heliconia (from central America) it is easy to forget the plants and landscape that have shaped Malaysia’s culture and traditions. When we learn how to name the trees we will know who and where we are, an important rediscovery with globalisation upon us.

For a wealth of information on all things related to Malaysia’s indigenous species, two excellent reference books on the importance of Malaysia’s plants should be included in every home library. Professor E.J.H. Corner’s Wayside Trees of Malaya and I.H. Burkill’s Dictionary of the Economic Products of the Malay Peninsula have been reprinted by the Malaysian Nature Society and the Government Printer respectively and give rare insight into forests, plants and Malaysian economic history.

Join the Malaysian Nature Society and take advantage of members’ discounts to buy these heritage titles.

Stephen Turpie

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Stephen Turpie

steveStephen Turpie was the Australian artist of the year-long Malaysia-Australia Visual Arts Residency at Rimbun Dahan in 1998.

Stephen’s is currently a lecturer of painting and drawing at LaTrobe University, Bendigo, and his qualifications include DipArt (Painting-VCA), GradDipFine Art (VCA), MVA (RMIT). Stephen has a range of interests that include sculpture, installations and time-based work along with his continuing practice as a painter. His research involves major phenomenological questions about the self, visual analogy and the engineered world, expressed in a metaphorical and sybolic format. Stephen Turpie has undertaken numerous other residencies, including at Green Street Studios , New York (1986) and Padiès Château , Lempaut, France (2008).

Catalogue Essay

In these new works, Stephen Turpie explores the evasive qualities of appearances; the ambiguity of things which have not come into sharp focus, but are demanding of our attention and ‘as through a glass darkly’ we try to make sense. Fusing imagery from biology, construction and abstract thought (mathematics, physics and philosophy) he traverses the natural and cultural worlds. This symbolic play in the metaphorical landscape resonates with an emotional intensity gained only from personal and ontological inquiry.

Turpie’s visual themes are influence by a diverse array of artists and works: from Joseph Beuys’ conceptual investigations into the fundamental principles of energy and the effects of both natural forces and of art, to Jean Miro’s symbolic innovations and Ken Whisson’s abstract treatment of the landscape.

The formal concerns of past works in painting, as well as sculpture and performance, recur again in this new series. His painted forms display the solidity and presence of three dimensional objects which are poised in ambiguous landscapes and receding intimate spaces. These arrangements are reminiscent of Turpie’s sculptural works of over a decade and a half ago in which clusters of discarded objects were delicately balanced in small museum boxes. These curious objects were the decaying leftovers of another time whose concealed histories conferred a certain dignity to their presence, the significance of which remained quietly elusive.

Stephen Turpie’s work contemplates ancient modes of thought alongside modern and contemporary ideas which reflect something of the all-at-once attempts to render life and appearances in theoretical guises. The use of the landscape genre is a significant choice for this subject as the natural cycles and biological processes have been commonly employed as metaphors for psychological and social phenomena in both ancient and contemporary descriptions. Turpie’s images are carefully constructed between the borders of figuration and abstraction, as such, his ‘figures’ are neither fixed in meaning nor anchored in the landscapes over which they hover.

Turpie’s choce and use of symbols reflect the flavour of Pre-

Socratic and Platonic modes of analogical thought. The invisible correspondences by which “all things pass through all things”; the similarity in dissimilars, were uncovered by the principle of analogy, for example, almonds are good for the eyes, walnuts for the brain, the seven planets with the sun and the moon relect the nine portals of the body (macrocosm=microscosm). The ephemeral nature of these protean transformations was underpinned by the notions of singularity and duality, sameness and difference, harmony and strife.

Throughout these works, T-junctions, chromosomes, blue intruding figures, houses and wedges group together in pairs, clusters or alone, their identity of difference forming the basis of their relation. For example, the house stands in relation to the cultural landscape as the chromosome to the internal microcosm of the body, as the defining points of civilization and humanity. These symbols display simultaneous features of singularity, self-same duality and multiplicity, yet, their identities are never simple: a T-junction can be a signature (of the artist perhaps), a letter referring to the building blocks of language and representation, it could be a telephone pole signifying energy and communication grids imposed on a barren landscape, or perhaps it represents the junction of various levels of existence, the organic and inorganic, or the biological and social. Two T’s join together to form a gateway, a bridge or a simplified dog. The chromosomes sometimes curiously look like two copulating figures, in other places like a solitary floating character. Electric blue figures invade the picture plane resembling cells in mitosis, ovum or phallus, or perhaps neurological cross sections indicating either the dualistic tension of creativity, the genesis of life, of the beginnings of intelligence and complexity.

Turpie’s imagery concurs with Richard Long’s description of his work as “a balance between patterns of nature and the formation of human abstract ideas”. Lattices, webs and branching structures are observed throughout the natural world from biology to chemistry and the mathematical descriptions of contemporary physics. The ambiguity of the brain/cell division when juxtaposed with such structures also brings into question the relationship between the structure of the world and the structure of our perceptions. The extent to which these patterns of order are inherent in the world or are imposed on sensations by the brain remains in question. In natural and human sciences as well as in art, the dividing lines between invention and discovery are hazy. For over a century, these issues have been hotly debated through the perennial questions of evolution theories and their explanatory metaphors.

Turpie’s depiction of the wedge/arrow, indicates the dark underbelly of evolution theories (competition and biological arms races) as well as the teleological notions (arrow of the Great Chain of Being) which Darwin’s wedge had overturned. The patchwork effect of some of the larger works reflect the newer modes of describing evolutionary change (and perhaps the creative process of the artist) as ‘biffrucation, tinkering and bricolage’. In biological terms, these notions emphasise the historical contingency and the exquisite imperfections of the actual structures which developed by chance from the myriad possible alternatives which had insufficient opportunity to develop. It also provides an apt metaphor for the artist and his work. According to evolutionary biologist, Francois Jacob:

“…often without knowing what he is going to produce, he (the tinkerer) uses what ever he finds around him, old cardboards, pieces of strings, fragments of wood or metal, to make some kind of workable object. As pointed out by Claude Levi-Strauss, none of the materials at the tinkerer’s disposal has a precise and definite function. Each can be used in different ways. What the tinkerer ultimately produces is often related to no special project. It merely results from a series of contingent events from the opportunities he has to enrich his stock with leftovers.”

The historical result of this process of tinkering is not a seamlessly engineered creation, but as Jacob proposes,

“a patchwork of odd sets pieced together when and where opportunity arose. For the opportunism of natural selection is not simply a matter of indifference to the structure and operations of its products. It reflects the very nature of historical processes, full of contingency.”

Turpie is both a tinkerer of symbols and a bricoleur of ideas. His fascination with the processes of nature, thought and art are both hidden and revealed in the verdant ‘openness’ of his paintings which allows us to explore the question of how ideas and experience are ordered in our attempts to apprehend the world. To the Appolonian urge for clarity and definition, Turpie’s fuzzy chromosomes reply,

“Do not befriend an elephant keeper,
if you have no room to entertain an elephant”.

Rumi.

Catalogue by Elizabeth Thomas

Gardening’s Current Affairs

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Gardening’s Current Affairs

by Angela Hijjas

from The Malaysian Naturalist, vol. 52 no. 1, March 1998

After six years, parts of my garden are beginning to fulfill imagined promises: a wider variety of birds and insects come part and parcel with more species of plants and the growing trees stretch the canopy to greater heights, enlarging the mass and volume of the garden enormously. Fourteen acres of stunted orchard is evolving into the forest I imagine, but it will remain the human domain as long as I continue to plant and transplant, nurture and prune, select and reject; the process of gardening is very much a current affair. Shown’s article in the last issue about pruning and ‘surgery’ highlighted this role of the interventionist gardener, but so much, at least for me, is more a matter of chance rather than choice.

Pruning can have dramatic effects on tropical plants that are otherwise only affected by subtle climatic change that human minders do not detect. In anticipation of the festive season, we pruned our kemuning (Murraya panniculata) hedge at the beginning of puasa, the fasting month, hoping to revitalise its formal shape while giving it time for more leaf growth to conceal any exposed woody stems, but a fortnight later (combined with a lot of rain) the hedge flowered profusely and also sprouted new growth. Next year the time to prune would appear to be in the middle of the fasting month, so that the magnificent fragrance can be a feature of our open house; but then again the season will be a few weeks earlier and the rhythm may be different.

Part of the chance element of gardening can be reduced if one keeps records. It is essential to observe carefully a plant’s habits, how it performs in different conditions. Otherwise it is so easy to forget. This was my New Year’s resolution; keep records and update them diligently.

A plan of the garden has to be made before the records can mean much, especially if you intend to plant vegetables and follow a proper rotation of ‘crops’. The PC can be an invaluable tool in updating and referring to old records. When was the bed composted last? What was planted before? What’s the record of pests and problems? A rain gauge is a good idea, and daily records can be graphed and compared in the PC; and in no time you will have a full-time hobby, perfect for the economic downturn!

Observing, recording and remembering have developed our gardening and agricultural expertise over the millennia, but in the tropics where there are few seasonal variations, it is critical to continue recording and interpreting, especially as so little is really known about our unique conditions. Temperate gardens with their seasonal changes and preparations are more predictable, daffodils flower in spring and roses in summer and autumn is the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’.

Perhaps Malay folk lore could give valuable insight into the habits of plants, but much traditional knowledge has already been lost with the changes in the kampung environment. It is barely viable to maintain the family plot when the younger generation is working in the factories that have sprung up all over the peninsula while the older generation looks after the children. A cash economy has replaced the need to depend on the products of small-scale agricultural labour, but the present crisis may re-introduce many of us to the rewards and delights of growing our won produce as we are being urged by politicians and the media.

Hydroponics seems a popular solution, possibly because of the marketing angle involved in selling all the paraphernalia that is required to get a simple crop of kangkung, but I am more concerned about the requirement for unnecessary chemical additives when most of what is needed is just outside the back door or on a piece of neighbouring wasteland that can be co-opted for vegetables. Instead of buying packaged additives for hydroponics, start a compost heap and get some exercise with the cangkul.

A single family generates a lot of vegetable refuse that can be recycled. You can use a large covered garbage bin with holes melted in the sides for ventilation. It will not be smelly as long as no animal products are thrown in, and a few shovels of soil to cover anything you suspect may attract flies will keep down the vermin. Cover the pile to prevent tropical rain from leaching out nutrients, but ensure it is just damp enough to allow the enrichment of rot. When the heap is finished, keep it for a few weeks and turn it to aerate and ensure it all decomposes evenly. Pile, cover and keep again until it is a rich black organic mass that bears no resemblance to the original material. Additives like dry chicken dung will greatly enrich the brew.

Making compost is much more satisfying that buying a produce to do the same thing, and there is nothing quite as pretty as a garden bed of vegetables rather than growing them in a plastic container. Perhaps my main complaint about hydroponics is influenced by its aesthetics just as much as by the commercialisation of something that can be a totally natural experience.

For anyone interested in growing vegetables organically, I can recommend an invaluable booklet that has been prepared by Siew of Cetdem, the Centre for the Environment, Technology and Development in Malaysia; send $5 and a stamped, self-addressed A4 envelope, for an excellent guide to growing vegetables organically in Malaysia. Siew previously ran an organic farm in Sungai Buloh and will be conducting courses in my garden later this year. In the meantime, study the leaflet, start the compost, set aside some garden space for produce and enjoy the results, which you will, of course, observe, record, assess and quantify. Good luck.

Cetdem’s address is P.O. Box 382, 46740 Petaling Jaya.