Albert Grøndahl

Hortus Conclusus

Museum Ovartaci, Aarhus, Denmark, 2024

The conch of a flower, the palm of a hand. The fundamental principle of the garden is a contained territory for growing plants. Each garden is an interpretation, a reworking of nature and consequently a reflection of culture. The garden is a poetic and reflective space in which humans recognise themselves as part of the complex and unpredictable systems that comprise the world. The Hortus Conclusus places humans both within nature and in distinction from it, and it recalls a clear message, that human nature is to be honoured not by transforming the condition of becoming, but by an engagement in the play of paradox and ambiguity that characterise it. Isolated from the outside world but always open to the sky, often accessed but only viewed from its surroundings, the Hortus Conclusus invites its visitor for reflection and prayer.It is programmed and it is a symbol. Carefully selected through botany, it is pleasure, death, social interaction and play. In 2018, Aarhus Psychiatric Hospital (DK) and its museum were closed as well as its environment surrounding it. Initiatives to broaden perspectives on psychiatric treatment were all disappearing after 166 years of trying to make things better. It was broken culture. This Hortus Conclusus, is a garden, a social platform, a botanical study, dedicated to, led and managed by the psychiatric environment. It will all be part of the new Museum Ovartaci, a socially anchored museum, connecting and preserving art and human storytelling in its purest form.

To re-unite the nature of the psychiatric environment, and culture once again, we need order, and so we make boundaries. Enclosed Garden – Hortus Conclusus.

Albert Grøndahl