Ian Hamilton Finlay

Here’s a tiny little inter­view with Ian Hamil­ton Finlay, con­crete poetry pio­neer, gar­dener, artist; first in orig­i­nal fax form, then as text, with (repet­i­tive) ques­tions restored.

(Click to view full-​size)

1. Prose, poetry, sculp­ture, gar­den­ing - do you see these as dif­fer­ent, dis­crete dis­ci­plines, or do you see your work as a whole that hap­pens to be expressed in dif­fer­ent media?

Work­ing in dif­fer­ent medi­ums has never been a prob­lem, that is to say, a ques­tion, to me, so I have no answer to your question.

2. Little Sparta - from the garden’s name on, Little Sparta seems to be rich with allu­sion and ref­er­ence - is it a garden in a tra­di­tional sense, or a large scult­pure, a space to exhibit, a sort of lit­er­ary work, a little utopia? What were your aims when plan­ning and cre­at­ing Little Sparta?

Little Sparta is a garden in the tra­di­tional sense. It is per­haps not like other modern gar­dens, but I think that other times would have had no dif­fi­culty with it. It is emphat­i­cally not a ‘sculpture garden’ as might be thought. My aim was always to make a garden but I was not influ­enced by the exam­ple of other gar­dens round about (as it were) but of gar­dens as tra­di­tion­ally under­stood. I was gen­uinely sur­prised when people found dif­fi­culty in accept­ing it as a garden rather than as a lit­er­ary work or whatever.

3. Fol­low­ing on from 1 and 2, the show at Inver­li­eth House seems to blend dif­fer­ent types of artis­tic prac­tice too - what prompted the idea of having a show made of sen­tences? Is the show to be seen as a com­pan­ion piece to the garden, or a reflec­tion on it? Has the set­ting of Inver­li­eth House had a bear­ing on the work?

Inver­leith House seemed a per­fect set­ting for an exhi­bi­tion of sen­tences. I admit that an exhi­bi­tion of sen­tences is per­haps unusual but just becuase a thing is unusual doesn’t mean it is wrong. The sen­tences had their origin in my gar­den­ing and the reader/viewer must make his or her own mind up as to whether an exhi­bi­tion of sen­tences is rea­son­able or not.

Posted at 4pm on 11/07/05 by Jack Mottram to the interviews category.
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