How about if today we take the time to stop and observe our surroundings? This evening we’d like you to join us in answering the call to contemplation that reaches out to us from the greenery of gardens which, designed for meditation and recreation, invite us to perform an exercise of spiritual healing and connect with more transcendental dimensions. Strolling through and pausing in those gardens also means engaging with the materialisation of a fantasy, the earthly projection of a paradise for which the garden is the metaphor and setting for its chimera. 

These ideas partly explain why green is such an important colour in Islamic culture, a legacy imprinted on our contemporary existence which has always shaped us and yet has been systematically ignored by the Eurocentric gaze. In that legacy, gardens have become a place where beliefs and cultures intersect, and it is at those points of contact that we want to pause in this session, where we will be joined by a guest.

Accompanied by the artist and researcher Aicha Josefa Trinidad, we’re going to stroll through imaginary gardens, through the fantasy of fountains, fruit trees and fragrant flowers that will help us delve into the visible and invisible as we explore the Móstoles landscape. A journey to histories and stories that left their trace and yet are simultaneously present and not present; to some we haven’t yet imagined, or haven’t stopped to contemplate... Will you join us?