For centuries, artists, writers, and thinkers have turned to the garden as both a method and a metaphor for contemplating the complexities of their times. Within its cycles of resistance and renewal, they unearth the roots of power, the wounds of colonialism, and the fragility of the earth. The Reluctant Gardener contributes to these conversations by reflecting on nature as lived experience, constantly re-created and co-constructed through embodied and subtle interactions. The garden serves not as a reference, but as an expression—both experiential and performative—of ecology. In a quiet turning of the seasons, the exhibition reveals the intensities of time through visual, auditory, and olfactory images, offering moods that resonate with today’s ecopolitical challenges. Amidst the tides of resurgent nationalism, the figure of the ‘reluctant gardener’ persistently reconfigures our origin stories, questioning which worlds we cultivate and which natures we preserve, while revitalising how we perceive their rhythms and syncopations, much like gardeners do.