Gardens Don’t Lie

Garden’s Don’t Lie…is a documentary video series by community film-maker Mona Khizam. The series explores how our gardens can reveal the truth about our values and the lives we lead. It thematically explores three gardens and the relationship their owners have to their plots of land.

A new version is underway across 3 gardens in the southern Adelaide suburbs supported by a City of Onkaparinga Community Development Program Grant.

Work in Progress Video – September 2022

This project is being developed in partnership with the City of Onkaparinga as part of OSCA’s ongoing Projects of the Everyday platform, that seeds, develops and presents SA artist-led projects in innovative spaces of creativity, making and experimentation.

VERSION #1  was made in the South Australian suburbs of Elizabeth Grove, Parkside & Salisbury with the gardeners – Andrew Manglaras, Norris Ginger (pictured below) and Joe Kielnerowski of Joe’s Connected Garden in 2019. It looked beyond the public face of these suburban gardens and explored the factors that make each of these 3 gardens what they are today: a garden where community is routinely grown alongside vegetables, a garden that brought to the fore a man long considered lost, and a memorial garden, forever caught in a moment of time.

Gardens Don’t Lie #1 was initially shown – as a work-in-progress – at the inaugural SAGA: Adelaide International Woman’s Film Festival and Fontanelle Gallery, Port Adelaide in 2018.

Artists Involved

OSCA

Our mission is to provide artists and non-artists with opportunities to create contemporary works that explore local ideas and new way of coming together in the public domain.

OSCA acknowledges we work on Kaurna Land – always was, always will be.

OSCA is funded by Arts South Australia. We also receive project support from the Australia Council, the City of Port Adelaide Enfield, Country Arts SA and the City of Onkaparinga.