Client: André Eide
Photo: André Eide
Texts: André Eide
Published: 2024
Tag: Book design
Publisher: Selfpublished
Printer: Livonia Print
Viola Hirta is a photobook and exhibition about a unique garden in central Oslo—Ola Narr allotment garden. In the shade of towering trees, and without access to a water supply, vegetables, flowers, and berries are cultivated. Freedom is considerable, even though the plots themselves are small. Some grow dense and unruly, to the delight of the city’s insects; others are carefully trimmed with a precise hand.
Over the course of six years, the garden was photographed using an analogue large-format camera—the original form of photography, with roots reaching back to the nineteenth century. It is a slow photographic process, demanding patience and sustained labour, not unlike the cultivation of the soil itself.