Scene XII: Eden brings together the work of ten artists that when seen collectively proffer a journey from Paradise to Fall; from the language of abundance and joy to more sombre, challenging inflections of being, much as all gardens are blessed with flowers yet burdened by weeds. The works in this show begin by exploring the ground on which temples are built, then proclaim their gardens, only to witness their inexorable decay, leaving us, finally, to mull over new paeans to presence and absence, love and loss, devotion and dislocation.

‘Eden’ is an anagram of ‘need’: a fitting logograph given that desire snakes its way through the Biblical tale of Paradise, at first illuminating the light of hope and bounty for Adam and Eve but which, ultimately, sucks them in to the shadows of dereliction and displacement. Eden is thus a space that is meant to celebrate Arcadian bliss but which, instead, draws attention to (wo)man’s innate fallibility; a space where flowers offer no love for life but rather serve only to witness death.