The Gardener, by Liliana Porter (2012)

Installation: broken porcelain plates, metal figurine, and various objects.

If there's one image that has represented the Argentine artist Liliana Porter since the 1970s, it's the "spill" (literally) or the accident. The objects in her installations are scattered or swirling, as if caught in a tornado. The chaos we see in The Gardener makes us think of collapse, and particularly the collapse of today's society. The small-scale figure is engaged in a titanic task: organizing this garden in which the flowers are painted on shattered porcelain. The figure is trapped in excessive chaos, yet it sweeps, organizes, and cleans up the "mess" to achieve a new normal that will never be the same as before.

Resilience, care, reconstruction: examples for our own lives, our own history, mending what has been destroyed.