It has been just over two years since my last visit to Bisou Dexler’s The Outer Garden, a place of beauty and enigma, art and creative spark, and peace and contemplation. It’s a location which generally combines two settings, once which may change on a very subtle level from time to time / with the seasons, and the other often presenting something completely new.
The first of these settings is home to the main Landing Point. It is a sky platform occupied by the decaying hulk of a once grand manor house; one now with roofing gone and walls broken and cracked, and signs in places of attempts to rebuild. A long hallway stretches before arrivals, pointing the way to a distant stair climbing to a round window.
Rooms sit to either side of this hallway, one to the right two on the left. The first, and closest to the landing point, appears to have one been a grand chamber. Now flooded by the waters pouring in from the walls, it is a beautiful garden space, with a snowy floor (as with much of the rest of the building) and pools through which the water tumbles and poppies, lobster claw, cattails and herbs grow, and over which gnarled trees hang their boughs.
A hole in the wall here offers access to the remnants of another grand room, of which little is now left but for columned wall sections and a tumbled tower, its sides open to the snow-covered gardens wherein multiple attractions might be reached and numerous more opportunities for photography found. Or’ if preferred, tea might be taken within might have once been a further hall linking two wings of the now broken and tumbling house.
Of the other rooms, one offers itself as a living space come boudoir; a place of music, art, and retreat, the jumbled furniture, floating balloons, musty books on their shelves and the detritus of a fallen ceiling and roof giving it a sense of romantic charm. Beyond it sits what appears to have once been a private garden space or courtyard, separating the lounge / boudoir from the empty shell of the second room which can only be accessed from the grounds outside.
The long hall itself is (as ever) beautifully dressed and well frosted with winter, again offering multiple opportunities for photography. However, closest to the landing point is an introduction to the second setting within The Outer Garden, together with the first of two teleports leading to it. Simply sit at the mirror and select the option To Find Solace. On arrival, walk through the tunnel with its 3D representation of a garden from a Ukiyoe painting to where a trapeze artist’s ring hangs and you can teleport on to the main art installation (it doesn’t matter which of the listing destination options you choose.
Your destination will be a gorgeous 3D representation of a traditional Japanese painting, one which draws on Hagoromo, one of the most-performed Japanese Noh (dramatic dance) plays. Subject to multiple adaptations over the centuries (including W.B. Yeats, who drew upon its story for his one act play, At the Hawk’s Well), it tells of s fisherman who, whilst out walking on a springtime night, happens upon the feather cloak of a tennin (an aerial spirit or celestial dancer) hanging on a tree bough.
Taking the hagoromo, the fisherman plans on keeping it as an heirloom; however, the tennin sees him with it and begs for him to return it to her, for without it she cannot return to the heavenly realms. taking it, and demands its return – for she cannot return to Heaven without it. At first, the fisherman refuses, but touched by the tennin’s sorrow, he relents: he will return the hagoromo to her – if she will show him her celestial dance.
After hesitating in turn, the tennin agrees to his terms and she performs a symbolic dance honouring the Moon and its phases (represented by the number three, five and fifteen), before the fisherman returns her cloak to her, and she vanishes, “like a mountain slowly hidden in the mist”.
Within Bijou’s Hagoromo, elements of this story are present; there are fish to represent the fisherman, there’s the shoreline where he walked with his friends; little island sit on the water whilst the Moon can be seen in a number of symbolic forms. However, what is offered should not be taken as any literal interpretation of the play; rather, it is, as noted a 3D celebration of traditional Japanese art into which we can step and experience from within.
Multiple places to sit are available for this, including what I’m going to calla “celestial cart” which can carry visitors around and through the painting. To explore on foot, simply pass under the line of Torii gates and drop down to the level below, and then from there make your way around (and down) to where another mirror teleport will return you either to the Torri gates or back to the intermediary teleport point, with the mirror there taking you back to the main landing point.
Throughout all of this there is a sense of serenity to be found; wandering the halls of the house or along the covered walkways of the painting, there are no distractions of unnecessary sounds or music (which is not to say The Outer Garden is entirely without sound; rather sounds are restricted to where they need to be), allowing the mind to settle and appreciate without undue agitation.
Magical.
Related Links
- The Outer Garden SLurl (Rated: Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 