Sophie Walker talks with Hendrik Driessen
Now that spring has come, we'd like to give some consideration to the unusual garden surrounding Sky Mirror (for Hendrik) by the world-renowned artist Anish Kapoor. The garden celebrating De Pont's twenty-fifth anniversary was designed by Kapoor's wife, the well-known English landscape architect Sophie Walker.
The Dutch professional journal Blauwe Kamer wrote the following about it:
"The garden consists of a series of curved ponds carried out in brick - situated in one of these is Kapoor's artwork. Midway between two ends of the garden, a horn-shaped incision functions as a footpath. The ponds are surrounded by a lush garden, which contains plants that have been collected by the British plant hunters Sue and Bleddyn Wynn-Jones. Most of the plants are growing alongside cultivated varieties, largely found in the Netherlands. The planting scheme emphasizes seasonal contrasts: bare branches and seedboxes in the winter, early blossoms in spring, abundant verdure in the summer and reds, yellows and oranges in the autumn.
Into her design Walker incorporated subtle references to local history. Indeed through the use of Dutch paving bricks, but also by designing the garden's layout as a carpet - thereby alluding to the city of Tilburg's past in textiles."
In a conversation with De Pont's director Hendrik Driessen, exclusively for visitors to the museum, landscape gardener Sophie Walker will explain how she arrived at her design and her choices of plants.