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11. THE GARDEN OF EDEN 1998, cast bronze, Ø 95 mm (c) (not for sale) Made for the British Art Medal Society. Everyday reality is one-dimensional and superficial. A deeper reality, however, exists in every human being, a primal desire for harmony, peace, an unknown landscape. To get there the closed gate has to be opened. Only you can open your Garden of Eden. How, when…? It is up to you to take a pair of scissors, and to seek for that unknown landscape. The legend reads: Henceforth all will be different. The apple is a metaphor for the temptation, which must be resisted. I thought for a long time about what this medal wished to say, and I wrote down quite a lot about it. I now think I finally understand what it’s really about, what its message really is, which is an exhortation to us all: dare to live! coll.: British Museum London “The best Dutch medal of the twentiest century.” (Karel Soudijn: Het FIDEM congres in Weimar, De Beeldenaar 1, 2001)