falling garden, floating garden.

It sounds a bit like a Haruki Murakami novel, doesn't it? It's actually two amazing installations--artistic creations like surrealist dreams--on opposite sides of the world. I discovered both this week and wanted to share them with you.

The Falling Garden was designed by Swiss artists Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger for the 50th Venice Biennial in 2003. Visitors were invited to lie on an oval bed in the middle of the room and feel an "exploded" garden rain down all around them. How did they accomplish this? I have no idea. Can you imagine being in the middle of it all? Flowers, fantasy and wonderment all around. You can see more of the artists' breathtaking work here.

The Falling Garden by Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger

Floating Flower Garden is an installation by Japan's Team Lab, its theme, "Flowers and I are of the same root, the garden and I are one." A room full of suspended, motion-controlled blossoms (2300 in all, living and growing) float up and down according to the movements of visitors in the space.

Floating Flower Garden via Team Lab

I love these fantastical installations because they both immerse the viewers, engulfing them in the garden settings, in effect creating a oneness with nature in the most magical way.