The Garden of the Forking Paths
Xi'an, China, 2011

The collection of drawings and photographs document the conception, refinement and realization of a permanent exhibit at the 2011 Xi’an International Horticultural Exposition.

In the collective Chinese imagination, rivers flow from west to east, but the Chan-Ba River, upon whose floodplain the garden is situated, flows in reverse—from east to west. Positioned within this site-specific hydrological myth, the garden conceptually reverses the automated tendency of water to converge, establishing in its place a system of divergent flows of both people and hydrology. Read metaphorically as an allegory for life, the bifurcating flows question a world view in which history converges to form a meta-narrative.

Framed on two sides by a bamboo frame, the garden is entered through a single aperture at the highest corner of the site. Once over this threshold, the garden visitor considers a critical scene; the path and accompanying water runnel bifurcates repeatedly, so that one way becomes many, fanning out over the convex landform that runs down to the lake. At each fork, the visitor must make a choice. Further, as the way becomes clearer, paths begin to topographically separate.