Mohamed Bourouissa. Resilience Garden

About

Mohamed Bourouissa has created a garden working with local people, gardeners, school pupils, teachers and artists. The artist was inspired by a garden made by a patient of the psychoanalyst and writer Frantz Fanon at the Blida-Joinville Psychiatric Hospital in Blida, Algeria. Fanon’s patient created the garden as occupational therapy, reflecting the organisation of his mental space through its structure. Bourouissa researched and learnt the patient’s approach to botany, architecture and therapy in order to create a similar garden in Liverpool. The garden has been conceived as a space of ‘resilience’. Some of the plants are native to Algeria and others have healing effects. A film documenting the garden and its evolution is presented at FACT.