Pipo Nguyen-duy | The Garden

Pipo Nguyen-duy writes: “​’The Garden’ is a collection of large color photographs documenting a series of abandoned greenhouses located approximately 45 minutes from Oberlin, Ohio. I photograph these abandoned structures to chart the various stages of growth and decay throughout the year. Aesthetically, ‘The Garden’ is a departure from my other work. With this project I am trying to document objectively rather than to stage subjectively. In ‘The Garden’ I use the camera to record facts rather than to use it as a subjective tool. Conceptually, this body of work is similar to another series in progress entitled ‘East Of Eden.’ Metaphorically, ‘The Garden’ is an inquiry into the Garden of Eden as an abandoned site (as if from the perspective of a natural scientist or archeologist). I have become increasingly intrigued with the idea of the abandoned greenhouses as a future relic of a man-made Garden of Eden. Beyond serving as metaphorical landscape, I hope that my images from ‘The Garden’ will also serve as a document of a vanishing part of Ohio’s unique history.”