Catherine Wagner, Global Garden

2014, 474 Natoma Street, San Francisco, CA

Using the exterior of the elevator tower, Catherine created an architectural frieze that references the notion of a home garden. In essence, a garden is a defined outdoor space with a range of uses and can serve myriad objectives, such as a demarcation of ownership, privacy, sacredness, and ornamentation. The garden also serves as a marker of domesticity, of metaphorically and physically planting one’s roots. The garden is symbolic of refuge, growth, and community.

The composition of the image garden, with its assemblage of plants, takes on a beautiful patterning which can be seen at a distance while the individual components are visible up close. Many panels concentrate on a singular leaf structure in order to reflect the dynamism of that species. Working with the elevator tower's verticality allows the gardens to be both immersive and cascade perceptually.