Imagining Paradise - The Aestheticized Garden as Articulation of a Mythic Western Imaginary of Paradise

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2016.ENGLISH SUMMARY: This study explores the extent to which the aestheticized garden can coercively articulate a mythic Western imaginary of paradise as the site for an occidental exotic fantasy of the East. The splendour of Islamic ‘paradise gardens’, together with imports including foreign plants, Eastern novelties and manuscripts such as the Arabian'Nights narrative, played a major role in influencing the Western construct of the ‘orient’ as exotic, erotic, alluring and ultimately ‘other’. This distorted, miragePlike Western view of the ‘orient’, contrived without the consent of its inhabitants, denies the corresponding reality of its geographical location. This theory offers a lens through which to view the Western obsession with the exoticized ‘other’ – both in the East and in the Americas – and the ensuing European mania for collecting rarities, compiling ‘cabinets of curiosities’, and creating hothouses as paradisiac microcosms housing outlandish botanical collections. My practical work, split into the Pomegranate' Collection and the Gifappeltjie' Collection, aims to simultaneously rely on and subvert this exoticizing gaze in a series of highly symbolic contemporary jewellery objects that offer glimpses of a fragmented, aestheticized botanical paradise.AFRIKAANS OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek die mate waarin ‘n estetiseerde tuin ‘n Westerse paradysvoorstelling as medium vir ‘n Westerse eksotiese fantasie van die ‘Oriënt’ kan uitbeeld. Hierdie Westerse siening van die Ooste as eksoties, eroties, aanloklik en veral as ‘die Ander’ is gedeeltelik beïnvloed deur die beeld van pragtige Islamietiese ‘paradysP tuine’, ingevoerde seldsame plante en ander nuwighede, asook manuskripte soos die Arabiese' Nagte' storieversameling. Dié Westerse verwronge drogbeeld van die Ooste, opgebou sonder sy inwoners se inwilliging, ontken die ooreenstemmende werklikheid van ‘n egte, geografiese ligging. Hierdie teorie bied ‘n lens waardeur die Westerse beheptheid ondersoek kan word: enersyds die obsessie met alles wat eksoties is in beide die MiddePOoste en in Amerika, asook adersyds die Europese manie vir eienaardige versamelinge in ‘kunskabinette’ en tropiese glashuise, wat as uitbeelding van ‘n botaniese mikrokosmos gesien kan word. My praktiese werk, bestaande uit die Pomegranate' Collection en die Gifappeltjie' Collection, skep indrukke van ‘n gefragmenteerde, estetiseerde botaniese paradys in die vorm van ‘n versameling simbolieke, kontemporêre juweliersware met die doel om die bogenoemde vervreemdende aanskouing gelyktydig aan te wend en te bevraagteken