A Creative City Grant project generously supported by Birmingham City Council.
Garden State is conceived by Fabrice Mazliah, Work of Act and co-founder of the German art collective MAMAZA, whose projects study the relationship between human beings and their environment, and whose previous work ASINGELINE we presented back in 2017.
This ephemeral art installation is made up of hundreds of house plants collected by the artists from local residents and businesses from across Birmingham. The plants, which are loaned for a week, are used to create a social oasis, a utopian island and event space where you can enjoy a range of entertainment and activities.
Inspired by Libertalia, a ficticious anarchist colony founded at the end of the 17th century in Madagascar, where pirates liberated ships of slaves and they all lived together in freedom in an exotic and peaceful community, Garden State will transform the main stage at MAC into a lush rain forest.
Garden State blurs the relationship between audiences and artists, where the stage becomes a public arena and the audience interacts and is involved in creating the artistic experience.
Each day, you will be invited to participate in a range of activities, from meetings, talks, storytelling, yoga classes, workshops, performances, concerts to open mic sessions and more. Garden State becomes the framework of a social choreography where the local inhabitants of Birmingham are at liberty to come and go. It is a place to dream, relax, talk, make new friends and just be.
CALL OUT
Is your plant a star?
Join us to create a green utopia and become part of The Garden State and lend us your plant for a week. Make your plant a star!
Plants can come from homes, schools, universities, hospitals, botanical gardens etc. we want the Garden to represent the city, its wards and to form a community.
For more information and to register, please click here .