Le Jardin des merveilles

In the Giudecca prison in Venice there is a garden: a wonder garden. Every day a group of the prisoners tend it and consume its produce, having found in the fruit and vegetables a link with real life. Stretching beyond the garden is the Lagoon with its brackish tang and unmistakable sounds, a shipyard where a worker is whistling an old Venetian song, the open window of an apartment from which fragrance of tomato sauce dispels. The women inmates listen, talk, think and laugh. Most of all, they recognize in the fruits of the earth the regal gifts that the prison transforms into moments of poetry.