Special Event: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf

 

Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf
A Film by Thomas Piper
Virtual Event : Filmmaker Q & A on Friday, May 21st at 2pm
Open Screening: Mon. May 17 - Sun. May 23
 
“For me, garden design isn’t just about plants, it is about emotion, atmosphere, a sense of contemplation. You try to move people with what you do. You look at this, and it goes deeper than what you see. It reminds you of something in the genes — nature, or the longing for nature.” – Piet Oudolf
    
We are showcasing the work of the brilliant landscape designer Piet Oudolf this month with a virtual screening of Thomas Piper’s documentary on the Dutch genius, Five Seasons, between Monday, May 17 and Sunday, May 23. The screening will be accompanied by a Q&A with the filmmaker on Friday, May 21 at 2pm.

Five Seasons is an immersive and meditative documentary that reveals how the revolutionary landscape designer Piet Oudolf upends our conventional notions of nature, public space, and ultimately, beauty itself. 

After completing a feature documentary on New York’s High Line, award-winning filmmaker Thomas Piper met the inspirational designer and plantsman, Piet Oudolf, and the idea for a new project was born. The documentary, FIVE SEASONS: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf, immerses viewers in Oudolf’s work and takes us inside his creative process, from his beautifully abstract sketches, to theories on beauty, to the ecological implications of his ideas.

Intimate discussions take place through all fours seasons in Piet’s own gardens at Hummelo, and on visits to his signature public works in New York, Chicago, and the Netherlands, as well as to the far-flung locations that inspire his genius, including desert wildflowers in West Texas and post-industrial forests in Pennsylvania.

As a narrative thread, the film also follows Oudolf as he designs and installs a major new garden at Hauser & Wirth Somerset, a gallery and arts center in Southwest England, a garden he considers his best work yet.

Piet Oudolf has radically redefined what gardens can be. As Rick Darke, the famous botanist, says to Piet in the film, “your work teaches us to see what we have been unable to see.” Through poetic cinematography and unique access, FIVE SEASONS will reveal all that Piet sees, and celebrate all that we as viewers have been unable to see.

This program is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Edgartown Free Public Library and the Chilmark, West Tisbury, Oak Bluffs, and Vineyard Haven libraries.

Request the link to the film and the Zoom link to the filmmaker’s Q&A  by contacting library program coordinator Anne McDonough amcdonough@clamsnet.org