Category: Allegra Haynes

 Exploring the natural and manmade elements in the Nitobe Garden and Spanish Banks Beach, I focused on how their physical elements create visual compositions (as if in a painting or, well, drawing…) and how these moments may be observed by visitors.   

While the Nitobe Garden is undoubtedly a visually stunning landscape that is highly manicured, seeing its hidden infrastructure is like catching it tell a secret.  Duly hidden so as to not take away from the garden’s serenity, but equally necessary for the maintenance of the garden year-round, the infrastructural elements are various and numerous throughout and can pull visitors out of the garden’s crafted “natural” landscape.

The two views above show the west and east views of the beach. The first one looks west toward the UBC peninsula where no development is seen on the mountain across the water. Compared to the east-facing view, the landscape reads differently on the ground as the downtown highrises fill the horizon. I found I spent most of my time looking away from the east view as I preferred the “natural” landscape more.

I chose to capture the instances below as they are human interventions with visual compositions that were made of natural and manmade objects created by and experienced by people.