An art form of the most basic elements, gardening can quickly become a necessity during times of war and economic, political or social hardship.
“Art, in all its forms, is not a luxury at all, but an imperative, and probably even a necessity,” said Kenneth Helphand, professor of landscape architecture at the University of Oregon and lecturer at Cal State Long Beach’s Daniel Recital Hall on Friday.
“Defiant gardens” were described by Helphand as gardens cultivated in wars, dumps, wastelands, or any extreme or difficult situation as an act of adaptation, assertion and human resistance.
Helphand’s book “Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime” discusses these various gardens. His lecture focused mainly on gardens in Japanese internment camps and Nazi concentration camps during World War II.
“Gardens are desired, but they’re rarely seen as essential,” Helphand said.
He said these gardens represented home and hope, as well as a chance to find normalcy in the midst of chaos.
Helphand’s lecture provided countless examples of individuals’ different experiences creating “defiant gardens.”
“Gardening was a way of taking possession,” Helphand said. “For people who had just been displaced, this was of the utmost importance.”
Defiant gardens are still cultivated today. Helphand exemplified gardens created by American soldiers in Vietnam and, more recently, Iraq.
The event was the first of “The B-Word Project: Banned, Blacklisted & Boycotted,” a campus-wide initiative on censorship.
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