When I was a kid, I hated it whenever my father would call me outside to work with him in the garden. When I did end up working with him, I also hated it. The insects, the dirt, the sun, and the sweat were not as enjoyable as cartoons or toys. However, every time I was out in the garden with my father, he would say, “Plants are our teachers. As long as we take good care of them, they will always have many lessons to teach us”. These weren’t his exact words, but it would always be something along these lines.
“Plants?” “Our teachers?” As a young kid, I couldn’t care less about plants, let alone consider them to be teachers. However, my father’s words have stuck with me over the years, and the older I grew, the more I understood what he meant.
Turns out, the world is a pretty messed up place. It certainly wasn’t what the cartoons depicted. War, climate disasters, poverty, disease, and terrorism were all things that I became well aware of over the years. The news made sure of that, as well as anyone who wasn’t living under a rock. The world is ugly.
School, in some ways, made things worse. The stress was sometimes unbearable. It wasn’t just from the academics, of course. What I said to my crush in art class, or how ugly my hair was looking one day, maintaining my friendships, etc. etc. The world is overwhelming.
So, obviously, I needed an outlet. I needed to eliminate some of the stress. Video games helped. But I needed something to give me hope. I needed something that could reassure me that the world was actually not that bad.
Gardening and plants became my outlet. Every time I went outside and enjoyed looking at the plethora of colourful flowers and plants with intricate designs, I was given hope that there is still beauty in this world. By gardening, by taking care of and nurturing plants, I could be given that same hope every single day. Plants, indeed, are our teachers. Over recent years, I have learnt many lessons. But truly, the one that has stuck with me the most is that while the world may sometimes be ugly and while everything can sometimes feel too much, there are always those beautiful things in life that might just make all of the bad stuff bearable. The world is beautiful.
This exhibit is organised into lessons. I felt it was appropriate considering the manner in which I view and understand plants. However, I also wanted it to serve as an example of how I have lived my life. Being a Muslim, I would hear a lesson from the imam every time I went for Friday prayer - lessons about morality, life, death, etc.. To this day my father would always tell me an anecdote from his own life or something that he learned along the way in order to give me the hard truths of life or to make me into a “better man”. I’m not sure if this is a cultural thing or not but the point is, lessons have played a huge part in shaping me into the person I am today. And so, in this sense, this exhibit also provides a glimpse into my own life.
