Pocket Garden

During the Wereld van de Witte de With festival in 2008, artists Gigja Reynisdóttir and Dienke Groenhout presented the project “Pocket Garden.” This mobile city garden took the form of a gleaming silver caravan with a fully furnished garden inside — complete with a gently flowing stream. The work responded to the festival’s “Green” theme, offering a movable oasis of peace and nature in the heart of the city.

The artists viewed the caravan as a kind of Tamagotchi — a living object that required care and attention. Without it, the garden would wither away, serving as a playful yet thoughtful reflection on our relationship with nature in an increasingly urbanized world. “Pocket Garden” poetically questioned what nature still means in an environment dominated by concrete, and how we might reclaim it once more.

The installation offered passersby a sensory experience: stepping inside meant briefly escaping the city, surrounded by flowers, greenery, and birdsong. The project was not meant as a warning, but as a practical, mobile solution to the lack of green space in urban environments. Mothership produced the work in collaboration with September in Rotterdam (Rotterdam Festivals).