Paradiso
Paradiso is an urban garden whose care and growth has been entrusted to the inhabitants of Caracas. It is a temporary installation that provides a space of inclusion and illusion, a fragile space secluded from a conflictive context in which the visitor is invited to help build a different kind of city.
Paradiso is an urban garden whose care and growth has been entrusted to the inhabitants of Caracas. It is a temporary installation that provides a space of inclusion and illusion, a fragile space secluded from a conflictive context in which the visitor is invited to help build a different kind of city.
Throughout history, gardens have offered a controlled and idealized parcel of land, a space separated from the outside world and charged with multiple meanings. In providing an enclosed green space, Paradiso draws inspiration from the concept of garden as a human and cultural construct. The installation also draws from historical references of paradise as an enclosed garden.
Paradiso is a joint project by Incursiones and Central Arquitectura, two architecture firms based in Caracas, Venezuela. It is made possible by the support of the Goethe-Institut and developed in collaboration with public and private organizations.
The main space of Paradiso is a plant nursery. It is a small circular enclosure in which visitors deposit plant donations. Once there, plants belong to the garden and depend on others for survival. In this sense, the responsibility of caring for something that is not one’s own is shared by everyone. After a period of two weeks the installation is dismantled and the plants leave the garden. Some are planted around the city; others end up in people´s homes as a present the city gives back to the individual.
As part of the project, we organized a series of lectures and planting sessions with over 400 children from public schools in the area, who later became the main caretakers of the garden and helped spread the message about the meaning and care of the installation.
Paradiso was first installed in the old center of Petare, the largest slum in Venezuela. The site is immersed in the dynamics of a conflictive and sometimes dangerous context. Nevertheless, it is used intensely at all hours for a broad range of activities. In two weeks Paradiso was visited by more than 5000 people, changing the everyday use of the space. Before Paradiso only 10% of the people that walked by stayed in the square for more than 20 minutes; during Paradiso the activity and permanence in the square increased significantly, with 50% of people staying at the square, either in or around the garden.
By promoting interaction and collaboration, Paradiso aims at rebuilding citizenship and confidence towards other and the city as the space that brings us all together.
