The Garden as an Expression of Supernature

Abstract

'The Garden as an Expression of Supernature' discusses the Wasserkrater Garden in Germany as an entry to define a contemporary interpretation of nature: "super-nature", which might be represented in gardens as a force of abundance, beautiful and dramatic, showing existence to its full extent in which humans are only a small part, and at the same as something close to home, part of our daily environment. The Wasserkrater Garden shows an entanglement of natural and artificial expressing the contemporary understanding of the Anthropocene: the current era after the Holocene, in which humanity intervenes as a force of nature, and nature no longer exists without human influences. Without the distinction between what is natural and what is man-made, the contemporary garden can expose wilderness not in opposition of, but as an integral part of the metropolitan realm and our daily environment, evoking an immersive encounter with nature: an embodied experience.