“In the entropology of globalization, all management generates abandoned spaces. All creation as applied force entails negation; all production entails neglect.” (Gilles Clément, 2005)

The Rayy Cement Factory, abandoned for more than 30 years and walled off from the surrounding city, stands as a symbol of this alternative imagination. It is a place where traces of human industrial activity have been left to gradual decay but also a place where the prevailing forces of the natural world can be observed, a nuanced landscape that is neither natural nor completely artificial.

Ruderal Acts, Gardening Beyond the Wall considers the Rey Cement Factory as the starting point for an alternative idea of a garden. One that benefits from blurred boundaries, is shaped by the organic growth of ruderal species and cultivated by often unintended events: the leakage of a pipe, the shading provided by a brick wall or the migration of flora from agricultural activities.

Through a collaboration with a local photographer, a photojournalist, a botanist and a curator, the ‘garden’ of the Rayy Cement Factory was carefully surveyed and documented, laying the groundwork for an atlas of the garden.