Aesthetic Frames: Jacques Derrida and Gardener's Cultivation of Hostility

The paper focuses on the aesthetic frames of gardening. I propose understanding plant cultivation as an aesthetic framing of divided hospitality and hostility. Following Derrida’s critical reading of Kant’s thoughts on beautiful frames and Austin’s thoughts on performative fails, I argue that the gardener’s performativity delimits the beautiful and cultivated order of his garden from the wild and chaotic ‘outside’ he cannot govern. Progressively, by resisting the ‘outside’ through inner rituals of framing, the gardener encloses himself ‘inside’ his locally performed order of cultivation. Based on my deconstructive revision of gardening genres, I conclude that environmentally engaged aesthetics might overcome the traditional gardener’s cultivation of hostility towards otherness.