Spiral Beach Garden

 

6 years time lapse (January 2017 - January 2023)

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In January 2017 I decided to make an attempt to clean the beach a bit on Madam Martha Koyu on Burgazada (Istanbul, Turkey).

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Unfortunately this wonderful beach is heavily polluted besides all the plastics with construction waste (pieces of asphalt, concrete, roof tiles, ceramic tiles, asbestos beton, etc) they dumped for many years into the sea around the corner from a cliff.

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I thought it would be nice to try to make something positive out of it, the idea of the spiral beach garden was born.

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The logarithmic spiral is constructed with the collected asphalt pieces and since then covered with mud and the natural stones.

After removing a meter deep layer of micro plastics I used the broken roof tiles on the inside as a filter where I put new composted soil, this process I repeated over the years, the dried up vegetation is used for new soil.

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The outside wall is constructed with the natural stones and the mud, like the island itself, protecting it from the sea during the south western storms in the winter.

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Since then the garden is growing and flourishing, it’s now home to a wild variety of (field) flowers, cacti, herbs, vegetables and small fruit trees where bees and insects find there way.

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It’s a symbolic work in progress, changing with the seasons, hopefully it can continue to flourish.

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🙏🌱🙏

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