Shannon Cochrane: A-Z Garden 
Menu
The Lawn at 38 O'Hara Avenue: 

Breaking ground: Friday June 17, 12 to 6pm
In progress viewing: 
Saturday June 18, 12 to 6pm
Unveiling and public reception: Sunday June 19, 12 to 6pm

A three-day garden construction to transform the front lawn of the Majeed family household, where landscaping meets wonder cabinet alchemy. Employing a dash of kitchen magic and a dose of old fashioned cottage science, 26 groups of alphabetically logical objects and wonder cabinet treasures (apples to zippers, all-sorts to zig-zags) are used as the seeds to grow an over-night visual, aural and musical mini-show garden.

Shannon Cochrane’s work is always energetic and playful, employing both the fantastic and the banal. Her subjects and images include picnics, balloons, clotheslines, the objects hidden in grandma’s toy trunk and neighbourhood festivals. The title of one of her works Eleven Cent Magic is an apt description of Cochrane’s aesthetics. Her theatre of thrift-shop daydreams may turn up anywhere. She, like a child at play creates her own world from kitchen sink materials. 


Right: Shannon Cochrane and her extended family stand in front of their garden at 38 O'hara. The project was a group effort.

 

 

In Cochrane's weekend performance project, entitled A-Z Garden after the patriarch of the house - Azed Majeed, the front yard of her godson's parent's house is transformed into a public garden. The unkempt wilderness of a rarely mowed lawn will become Parkdale's Versailles. A private yard will become a public carnival. Flowerbeds will be carved out of the grass in miniature though elaborate pre-planned patterns with intersecting lanes of grass for strolling. Pre-chosen objects will then be planted complete with signs that will inform the passing garden lover of what they can expect to bloom. The following day the mysterious “organic constructions” will have emerged, bearing twinkling lights and other wonder cabinet ephemera. A-Z will be created for and with the participation of the Majeed family: Azed, Tina, the artist’s godson Ishmael and baby brother Django as well as Garden Consultant Catherine Chevrier.

As Shannon Cochrane mentions in her artist statement, gardens have been accused of being culture masquerading as nature. Cochrane's A-Z Garden hosts a mysterious alchemical process, allowing articles of culture to take root and blossom like living organisms. The philosophers stone in this case is simply, the desire to play.  “If you plant light bulbs,” the artist asks, “do chandeliers grow?” In this case the answer is yes, and what’s more, the artificial unscented roses in this garden will smell just as sweet.

Gardens, the artist states, though meant to capture natural beauty, are constructed nonetheless. “It is nature organized and ordered to suit our aesthetic tastes. A show garden and a parkette are places for observation only.”  This is the reason why they needn’t be large enough for most recreation activities. When the element of play is added, however, have these ‘just for show’ spaces been given the capacity to become personally relevant, intimate and touchable
Above: Among the objects blooming in the A-Z garden: Playing cards, paper airplanes, paper parasals, chinese lanterns, foil stars, old LPs, a bubble machine, coloured funnels and many other assorted items.


Shannon Cochrane is a Toronto based artist and performer. Her performance projects and participatory social interventions have been presented in artist-run centers, galleries big and small, in theatres, at events and for all kinds of audiences in Toronto, Montréal, Halifax, Switzerland, USA and the UK. She is one of the founding members of the 7a*11d International Performance Art Festival, is a two time Canada Council Performance Art Production Grant Recipient (2000/2002) and is a UK Perrier Comedy Award Nominee for her performance series at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2002). She is the Development Director at the Images Festival and sits on the Board of Directors for YYZ Artists' Outlet (Toronto).