The Garden of Wonders is the utopia of a garden that nourishes both body and mind. The ArtZoo in Bali can be described as the starting point for the idea of "bustani ya maajabu". Conceptually, it is about togetherness and common goals. Learning and reflecting in everyday life contents experience are the reasons of this enterprise.
BYM Concept
The concept of the "bustani ya maajabu" is to question everyday life, to pursue new approaches to solutions, to give space to one's inspiration, to concretize business ideas, to promote Zanzibar culture in dealing with modern influences, to put environmental protection into practice, to improve living conditions.
The place
3000m² bush land in the south Unguja Zanzibar serve as a frame and place for action. The sun, beeing the largest resource this region has to offer, provides possibilities for projects like the use of solar energy, solar cookers, solar ovens, solar heaters and solar refrigerators.
Baseline situation
Education, the desire to want to know more and to ask questions, is the wealth of people that allows them to be happy. Without forgetting that especially in Africa, people still have to fight day by day for basic living condicions, the lack of education and the resulting lack of creativity and ideas is the real poverty of a society that makes it impossible to overcome financial poverty.
Since the installed school system fails on a large scale, children do not even get the chance to build a humane life with the help of education.
The Bismark school system installed on Zanzibar, has not developed at all until now. Next to the Koranic school, they are the only possibility for the population to gain education. None of both are based on any modern pedagogy.
Children who have already been driven out of this schoolsystems during their first three years at school are hardly able to survive on their own.
The idea
The task and basic idea of the Garden of Wonders is to make people wonder and think. This is achieved through different projects e.g. insect identification, ornithology ...
The rediscovery of the joy in asking questions and the desire to know more is the core idea of the Garden of Wonders.
In every society there is a majority of people who want a better life and are willing to do more for it. The aim of the Garden of Wonders is to achieve these goals and to develop Better Life visions together with them through the educational projects, from which products and services emerge that guarantee a good life.
Other ideas are welcome to be adapted and shared as long as they are conceptually appropriate.
Art and Culture
The space of action is without transition the place of inner confrontation with what has been experienced, towards the development of creativity in artistic expression. The provision of working materials, working space and project work enables the realisation of art projects. For the cultural encounter a stage and the "LowTIdeMovie" open-air cultural cinema are in the centre. The program is designed for an open and intercultural exchange.
With the social events the public is again integrated, which triggers new projects.
Motivation through animation and interaction
In the center is an action space, with work and teaching areas for creative and productive projects, as well as exhibitions, cultural cinema, music and a kitchen for social interaction.
A productive and stimulating environment is created, inviting local and transcontinental visitors to marvel, learn and participate. The design of the garden is a continuous, ongoing process that is influenced by current projects and workshops. The first central object is the solar oven and thus the pleasant kitchen.
The solar oven stands as a symbol for the core idea of the "Garden of Wonders":
To make solutions for current challenges haptically perceptible.
A cooking area without fossil fuels for the entire food requirements of the Garden of Wonders and a small bakery that supplies the surrounding customers with baked goods.
- Implement the project with locals,
- Experience the system with your own senses,
- Convince of the functionality,
- Test the product,
- Support adaptation and copying,
- Establish an economic business.
Project work to productivity
Projects in the fields of art, culture and nature are developed and built together with local people. With an additional learning offer the competence of reproducibility is to be trained. In this way, products are created that are distributed. The highest goal that is aimed at here is that with increasing experience, the spin-off into an independently managed, economically successful business.
The focus here is on pragmatic solutions that affect the daily lives of the local population.
The list of possible projects is long, but their selection is based on the abilities and needs of the actors. One main topic is environmental protection in all matters.