Facetten 14 - steffenschöni - hatake

An expedition into Japanese gardening culture

Heidi Schöni and Karl Steffen went on a seven-week journey through Japan in the fall of 2010. Thanks to funding from the canton Thurgau, the artist couple, known under the name of steffenschöni, was able to make a long-time plan a reality. The media artists, whose work has had a focus on notions of plants and gardening for years, seized the opportunity to deepen their photographic research on Japanese kitchen gardens (hatake). They took over 3000 photographs on their journey from the urban sprawl of Tokyo, via the rural island Shikoku, to Kyushu, Hiroshima and Naoshima. A selection of 30 garden pictures is now being published as a portfolio that is reminiscent of Japanese paper art. The book is number 14 of the "facetten" series and features texts by Christoph Neidhardt and Martin Preisser.