My Garden’s Boundaries Are the Horizon

Writing, reading and thinking

To See the Inability to See — a collective that formed at de Appel's Archive in 2019 — is known for their collectively written texts and their performative readings of a series of temporarily made triangular books. In 2022 and 2023 they developed a foldable multidirectional book/object called My Garden’s Boundaries Are the Horizon: A Porous Reader to Unguard the Garden. This publication has sculptural and performative qualities, stressing the relationship between bodies and books; provoking collectivity in writing, reading and thinking. It has been developed in close conversation with its designer, Elisabeth Klement, who joined their collective process by designing the book parallel to the development of its content. The book/object has now unfolded into the exhibition My Garden’s Boundaries Are the Horizon — a repertoire of objects, gestures and events that expands its content into the space and in relation to other bodies, such as those of readers, visitors and artworks. This unfolding takes place on a flexible sculpture display that also holds a selection of works, weaving the publication, the artworks and the artifacts into an inter-related constellation of physical and spatial experiences.

Domains

The exhibition consists of several chapters, on view at various locations in de Appel. One consists of artworks by the individual members of the collective developed in parallel with the writing process. A second domain includes historical objects from personal collections related to the content of the publication. A third domain consists of works by other artists referenced in the book. A fourth direction establishes links between the content of My Garden's Boundaries Are the Horizon and the Appels Archive.

The exhibition features work by Arefeh Riahi, Martín La Roche Contreras, Maartje Fliervoet, Kader Attia, Kasra Jalilipour and Seba Calfuqueo, as well as a selection of historical objects.