Work I
The Book ofGarden
Object record
A garden heldin paper
The book’s meaning is carried by its intuitive structure: packets protect, pockets conceal, visible repairs record the hand at work, and every opening makes discovery physical.
- Artist
- Savera Kiani
- Date
- October 2023
- Work
- One-of-a-kind interactive mixed-media artist’s book
- Materials
- Vintage envelopes, handmade seed packets, old telephone-directory paper, reclaimed embroidery, lace, trims, dyed papers, botanical imagery, stitching, magnet and detachable floral ornament
- Dimensions
- Approximately 4.5 inches high × 6.5 inches wide
- Collection
- Trinketz Founders Collection
A closer reading
The memory of a garden, opened one packet at a time.
Beginning with a form
What can aseed packet hold?The form of The Book of Garden begins with the seed packet: a small paper structure made to hold future life.
Long vintage envelopes become a sequence of handmade packets, pockets and tucks. They guide the reader through concealment and discovery. An old telephone-directory sheet becomes a seed packet; embroidery cut from one of the artist’s shirts begins another life on the cover. These are not lesser substitutes for conventional art materials; they are the particular language of this book and the place in which it was made.
Savera Kiani, remembering her father’s garden in Islamabad
An inheritance of care
The heart.The living ground.The book is rooted in the Islamabad garden of Savera’s father. A cardiac surgeon and an avid farmer, he brought the same attentiveness to the human heart and to living ground. Savera grew up with the garden’s lessons of patience, soil, seasons and care.
This is a work read through handling. Its folds must be opened and its fragments lifted. Seeds and memories are held in the same state of potential: protected, carried and waiting to grow. Even a repaired flap remains visible, recording that care and growth are rarely linear.
A closer look
Views intoa garden held in paper.
Photographs trace the journal page by page, preserving the pace of opening, lifting, unfolding and discovery.
Closed book · sari silk, botanical paper and layered textiles 
The book extended · seed packets opening in sequence 
Botanical pockets, vintage papers and concealed fragments 
Illustrated seed packets and interactive folds 
An unfolded path through pockets and botanical ephemera 
Reverse cover · lace, sari silk and handmade flowers 
Cover detail · lace and yellow sari-silk ties 
Circular botanical page and yellow pocket 
Layered seed packets and a decorated pocket 
The closed book resting between openings 
Material detail · handmade flowers, lace and layered pages 
Closure detail · flower, lace and yellow sari silk