AMBIGUOUS UTOPIA

NAOMI M. JACOBS - REVIEW ON CONSUMING BEAUTY: THE URBAN GARDEN AS AMBIGUOUS UTOPIA

YOUR UTOPIA IS MY DYSTOPIA

In Consuming Beauty: The Urban Garden as Ambiguous Utopia, Naomi M. Jacobs argues that in a utopian society, plants and humans can coexist harmoniously if we pay “respect and attention to details” in our gardens and study their beauty as if we are appreciating a painting or landscape18 . The author then argues that all such plant enthusiasts are motivated by a passion for planting19, and how her desire for growing food, flowers and plants are not only adding beauty into her garden, but also benefiting her mentally.

Jacobs begins by assuming her garden is an independent “critical utopia” as she personifies her “innocent” garden

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longing for a better environment amidst the spoiled world we live in. Humans are all directly/indirectly obliged to take care of nature and thus our gardens too in what Jacobs describes as a current “utopian” nature and “dystopian” cultural behaviour. In effect, a garden is personal and tailored to the user and where one would specifically prioritise native plants, another favours “a flourishing vegetable garden”20. So, critical utopia is the relationship between the “ordinary world and the utopian society opposed to it… [and focuses] on the continuing presence of difference and imperfection within the utopian society itself” in order to develop sensible and dynamic alternatives21 .

Furthermore, Jacobs declared that the city we are living in is inevitably damaged. She penalises herself because as a gardener, due to choices made in vain of a beautiful garden, she describes her garden as a “tainted site”22. She had essentially “sacrificed nature to culture, devoting far too much of my precious space to non-native plants that play little part in the local web of life”23 .

REPAIRING THE FRACTURED WORLD

The first step to repairing the fractured world encompasses the readers to reconsider a flawless urban garden as a “new kind of potager combining food for nature, food for people and food for the soul”24. In this way, the garden is repurposed

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through adopting a different mindset, more specifically a shared collaborative garden where all the gardeners in the community design spaces to nurture the natural world together, “to feed ourselves, and to satisfy the human hungers for beauty, creativity and community”25 .

LIMITATIONS

In our attempts to nurture our gardens, sometimes we are doing too much, or the wrong thing and this is also damaging the wealth and beauty that the garden gifts us. Therefore, our care of the gardens is similar to our care of each other, and demands a similar kind of humility and gratitude”26. Similarly, experienced gardeners should consider the fauna embedded within the flora because in a garden, we are an enclosed ecosystem thriving for existence. But, even though the gardener works hard to perfect their garden, there will always be an imbalance between nature and urban. Finally, Jacobs concludes that the best gardens are the ones with no fanciful schemes and extravagant visions, but rather the ones that find its meaning in process rather than product, and recognises the impossibility of perfection while yet “preserving it as a dream”27. It is also nurturing the garden through the little things, such as deweeding and adding plant fertilisers during adverse weather conditions etc.

To conclude, “this is the nature we have. It is one we have made, but one also always making itself”28 .

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