Sleeping Garden

A competition entry for the Ragdale Ring performance venue outside of Chicago’s city center, where a lush environment is heightened by fragrant jasmine blooms, studied in 2019

Sleeping Garden, borrowed from a verse in the historic Ragdale Ring’s first theater program, is an outdoor installation conducive for performance and gathering in the summertime. The project imagines a delicate intervention to shroud the grounds and greenery. A large scale, permeable textile blankets the site, creating an interior within the lush outdoors. The environment is staged as the subject. The textile reduces information to uncover subtle textures and heighten the experience of the surroundings. The garment frames the scenery through contrast. Against the white drape, color becomes more vivid. Fragrant jasmine blooms scent the Sleeping Garden, enhancing visual, olfactory and tactile encounters with the landscape. 

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Image Credit: Abigail Chang