Reading Gardens - Working Beliefs​

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4 Aug 2026

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"Understanding another person's way of seeing can change our own."

 

Add this statement to the homepage when it feels appropriate. I think that I have identified something important:

Reading Gardens has guiding beliefs.

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At four months into the project since its start in April 2026, the project is still discovering them. Let them accumulate.

 

I might eventually have for example:

Working Beliefs:

• Observation reveals things that interviews alone cannot

• Understanding another person's way of seeing can change our own

• Professional knowledge is often expressed through what people notice before what they explain

• Photography can record attention as well as appearance.

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Then, in a year's time, I might look back and find:

• two still feel fundamental,

• one has evolved,

• and three new ones have emerged.

This is valuable evolution.

 

Where I could see them appearing publicly

Not on the homepage, but perhaps one day, on an About Reading Gardens page e.g. a short section such as: Principles "Reading Gardens is guided by a small number of ideas that continue to evolve through the work."

This might feel entirely natural when I've reached the point where the public needs to see this.

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Start a notebook:

Reading Gardens, Working Beliefs. Whenever one of these sentences emerges, write it down.

Don't worry about whether it's quotable. Don't worry about whether it belongs on the website.

Just collect them.

 

In a few years from now, these notes might become one of the richest records of how Reading Gardens matured. Some of them may eventually become part of a book or exhibition introduction. Others may quietly disappear because the work taught me something better.