After years of self-indulgent actions and a multitude of exploitative ventures on Earth, humankind has ruined the space that they deemed home. The climate crisis, caused by our own hands, made Earth uninhabitable, and humans were forced to leave. We had spent so much time and money on exploring potential colonization of space (instead of supporting social services that could have saved us from impending doom), so we were prepared to go to Mars and expand the race on a new planet – one that is completely insufficient in supporting any kind of pleasant human experience (primarily the foundation of a relationship to nature). Upon the building of Where Our Garden Grows, humankind has existed on Mars for nearly 2,000 years. The human genome has changed to the point where we could no longer breathe or function within the Earth’s atmosphere. Earth, since we left, has completely revived itself; the blue and green planet is more vibrant than it was before human beings created civilizations to begin with. Our old home, which we ruined, now teams with life in our absence.
Where Our Garden Grows is a space that aids in the appreciation of Earth as a memorial in itself. A benign building with only two small rooms, the audience has the opportunity to sit on a small hill, with the only grass on Mars, and look to the planet that humankind used to call home through a highly magnifying glass wall. The wall will be magnifying to a point where the person, who is by themselves in this room, has the opportunity to witness the thriving lives of plants and animals on Earth. People on Mars will be able to experience this memorial three times in their lifetimes – upon birth (to age five), age 25 (coming of age), and death – similar to the ritualistic moments in a church. Each visit is accompanied by a narration that reflects on the nature that exists on Earth and, in an incredibly lofty way, comment on some degree of human intervention on the planet. After an hour in the viewing room, the audience member leaves and signs a log book so as to carry the experience into a communal medium.
There is a human notion that Earth is non-existent without us, and that it flourishes only when we contribute. The point of this memorial is to express to the people who now live on Mars that that mindset is completely false, irrational, and detrimental. The memorial seeks to impose a degree of dissonance from Earth, and the human actions that occurred there, that allows for reflection without entire disconnection. The goal is to allow the audience to comprehend human action and to have an appreciation for a natural world that they are massively distanced from (through time and space).
