Ken Smith here suggests possible topiary tactics for the landless and absurdly style-conscious urban dwellers to get a leg up on their fashionable rivals.


(Ken Smith, “Bouffant Topiary,” Hair Gardens, Max Fish Gallery, 1998. Photomontage.)

Says the landscape architect: “Hair design and garden design have similarities. They are both organic, grow and are manipulated. They have to do with style, fashion and pretense.”

So quite possibly a trip to a Alexander McQueen boutique would also merit a stop at a Home Depot afterwards.


(Ken Smith, “Chest Hair Maze,” Hair Gardens, Max Fish Gallery, 1998. Photomontage.)

Of course, these photomontages hint at even more provocative acts of body modification: the self-mutilation of actual living tissues as spatialized in the Transgenic Zoo and the Brave New Edible Estates. Michael Jackson as a legitimate landscape concern.

Other “terrestrial activities of aliens”:
The Technolicious Arboretum
Extreme Horticulture
Revival Field
Woof!
Protoflorafauna
Edouard François

(Much thanks go to דוד בן יהכין for the images.)

(The title of this seemingly forgotten series comes from a comment at Le Fils de Shamgar, precisely and beautifully describing Pruned.)