Artwork

The Gardens has a number of artworks integrated into the overall design. This was made possible by a team of artists working together for a significant period and listening to the many and varied opinions expressed during the community consultation phase prior to creating their individual contributions. A spiritual overview for the development of the Gardens was provided by Mumbai-based artist and theatre producer Divya Bhatia.

The Rill, created by Julie Brook, is a flat circle of moving water situated within the naturalised area to the rear of the Gardens. It reflects traditional channels of water seen commonly in Islamic and English Gardens. The placing of the water and ground on the same plane forms a play between the solid earth and the moving liquid.

The Xylotheque is a library of the Scottish woodland created by Alec Finlay. It is an open structure reminiscent of the traditional Japanese renga platform. Through the centre grows a Scottish oak tree, surrounded by a library of wooden books detailing seventeen native species of trees.

Gerry Loose’s Inscribed Texts are a series of poems and texts carved into five sandstone waymarkers. The numerical importance is based on many considerations: pertinent were the five pillars of Islam and the five sacred Hindu trees. The text is written on the round so that is can be read and interpreted in a number of ways, with the text on each stone relating to the others.

Stephen Skrynka has created three Hidden Worlds – a series of intriguing, stiletto heel shaped protrusions, cast in aluminium, that offer a peephole into a hidden world.

There are 8 birdboxes within the Gardens with inscribed text by Alec Finlay in response to Suhayl Saadi’s translation of the Sufi poem ‘The Parliament of the Birds’.

Divya Bhatia has offered a conceptual framework throughout the development of the Gardens. Central to his thinking is the idea that all aspects of life are, in essence, non-oppositional.