26 Nov European Japanese Garden Association (EJGA)
Establishing the European Japanese Garden Association
Origin
Since several years – 2013 to more exact – I have been working on establishing a network of people – professionals on Japanese gardening, landscape architects, authors and educators, also amateur lovers of Japanese gardens, all over the world, and specifically in Europe. For that I have engaged on almost every social media platform, (specially on a Facebook group with now almost 10.000 members) and have traveled all over the world to visit gardens and meet professionals, or people I had met through the group, to share and enhance this passion for Japanese gardens wherever I could go or whomever I could reach.
On this journey I have discovered wonderful people and beautiful gardens, and also join several of the existing organizations like NAJGA in the US or Japanese Garden Society in the Uk and more recently, the Denmark Japanese Garden Association.
However I felt through the years, and still feel, that the culture and understanding of Japanese Gardens, specially in Europe, hasn’t fully been understood or mastered, still hasn’t bloom as I believe it could, mainly because everyone (including the existing associations) seem to be doing the same things but working isolated, everyone has passion and works for a same goal but disperse efforts on doing it alone. I know now that some of these organizations have come together to organize some events, but it still feels (for me) that a whole world of people and professionals and gardens are left out.
Goals
My goal has always been to connect people with this same interest, but above all, to provide means to educate each and everyone of those who have interest on understanding and learning the origins, meaning and techniques of this art of gardening. Profouding and leading their education on this matter, depending on their interest – professional carreer or hobby – is possible and important to promote and preserve the principles and legacy of Japanese gardens. Only through education this can be possible.
It would also be a goal to promote the creation of new Japanese gardens in Europe as art and wellbeing vehicles, as long as a strategic way to preserving the existing ones, since one of the greater worries on the last few years has been their maintenance and the great human cost it has to bring specialists all the way from Japan, either for build or maintain them. This difficulty has led to the destruction or deterioration of many gardens and for that, a special program has been implemented by the Japanese authorities, in order to recover some of those gardens, many of them, gifts of the Japanese emigrant community or fruit of diplomatic efforts from the Japanese nation towards the countries/ regions where they were built.
As an individual person I discovered, as many, Japanese gardens through my own effort and investigation, but when I decided I wanted to build a Japanese garden at my home, in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, I encountered the extra difficulty of not having the professionals with the specialized skills to build or maintain my garden. That was the moment when I realized something was wrong (that and when a close family member asked me, astonished, why the hell I had built a Japanese garden in Galicia, that was completetly absurd, Japanese gardens are meant to be in Japan). From that moment on, that was my only mission concerning this matter, extending knowledge, connecting professionals and passionate people into reaching the inspiration, but above spread them all the love and respect for this art.
Having participated on the 2018 NAJGA Conference discussion panel on defining Japanese gardens gave me the opportunity of interviewing and analysing the answers to our survey to a vast European sample of participants, from a wide range on countries and on the conclusions (please see the presentation bellow) of the exposed data the need for education and the need for a joint Association figure had emerged, although the association had already appeared on the figure of a Facebook group that now has 10.000 members.
Mission
The creation of a European Japanese Garden Association (or foundation) could encompass all of these goals and needs, reuniting firstly the existing Japanese garden associations and their value and experience throughout the years and, by doing so, promote the creation of new European country associations that would work jointly, all over Europe, as one, with the same fundamental goals and reaching much more people and professionals that want to learn and respectfully preserve its principles, so that Japanese gardens can be an asset everywhere, no matter if in Japan or abroad, since their beauty and emotional effect on people are Universal and so they should be.
Associating European gardens into promoting Japanese gardening principles, history and symbolism, bringing that knowledge closer to common people, in order to increase the interest and education of public in general and also of professionals related to gardening and landscaping design, either in public institutions or private companies and homes.
Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal Denmark, Netherlands, UK are listening and willing to start collaborating.
In difficult times it has always been said that united we shall prevail and I say that now is the moment to gather the passion that units all and firmly walk through this path.
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