Credo vs Dogma

Educational Garden in a Residential Suburb

The latest installation made by our Dutchmen friends Arno Peeters and Iris Honderdos has been in Norway not far from the log house once belonging to the libertarian writer Ens Bjorneboe. The new work is called CreDogma: Here the two words credo (a system of principles that guides the actions of a person) and dogma (a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted) have interwoven. "Credo vs Dogma" has always been topical in different countries and in different periods of time. There has always been a group of people or at least one person who didn't cope with the gray reality accepted by everybody as dogma and struggled for his/her principles for the liveliness and vitality of his/her credo. 

In our reality it has already become an accepted dogma that the wealthier the person is the more spacious his territory, conquered from public space is, and the higher is the fence bordering his territory. The near shore areas of Lake Sevan and the forests in Tsaghkadzor have already been fenced. Everywhere inhabitants of Armenia, citizens, are reminded that certain pieces of land, street, yard, town are no longer his. Many areas adjacent to blocks of flats are separated from public areas with rusty barbed wires, carious metal nets, frames of old iron beds, fences of climbing thorny bushes. I also viewed all these things to be ordinary like a doubtless dogma. I even didn't comprehend the project

"Educational Garden" with its map until I walked across the fenceless area, along the pedestrian's path, with a camera in my hand, walking past freshly greenswarded slopes. I would also name this photo "Credo vs Dogma". This is already an installation of real life.

On one side we can see an unsightly fence the owner of which says: "This is not yours. This is mine." On the other side the green area of our New School seems to be inviting everybody: "This is your town, your playground, your school." And this is the result of work of our College gardeners. 

Good taste, cleanness, inclusion with the public area.…Where does the school garden of our primary school in B4 district end, and where does the yard of the blocks of flats begin? Everything has been interlaced and included, and everything is open for everybody' care.

In the next photos we can see the Art School garden which has become real garden in the direct sense of the word. Green vegetation is everywhere here.

When in the summer of 2014 we began digging the slopes in front of the Mother school basement, I didn't yet know or realize the aim of our work. I didn't know that I was taking part in the creation of new educational environment: "Bicycle Club", "Rifle Range", "Library" with their future greensward covered slopes.  

The other day there was a TV show about the Vardanyans' family, the owner of the Grand Holding, who had put in good order the center of the small town Masis by building a greensward covered zone of rest with its playground for children. They have certainly done some thankworthy work, but it has been done in the result of a big financial investment with only one signiture. There has been a wish and the support of the mayor, and then there has been a professional care. Our case is something else. When an Educomplex undertakes such a large-scale job in one of the suburbs of the capital city with its limited financial abilities, and the necessary care is taken by the schoolchildren as educational work of life school, everything is already in the range of "Credo vs Dogma".