Reading Gardens - Working Beliefs​

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4 Aug 2026

ChatGPT discussion: I still wouldn't put: "Understanding another person's way of seeing can change our own." on the homepage today. But I do think you've identified something important:

Reading Gardens has guiding beliefs.

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Many long-term research projects and creative practices do. They simply aren't always published.

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My suggestion

Don't add a "Guiding Beliefs" section to the website now.

At four months into the project since its start in April 2026, the project is still discovering them. If you publish them too early, they can unintentionally become promises that the work then feels obliged to fulfil. Instead, let them accumulate.

 

For example, in our internal document, we might eventually have:

Working Beliefs (August 2026)

• 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.

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

• two still feel fundamental,

• one has evolved,

• and three new ones have emerged.

That evolution is valuable.

 

Where I could see them appearing publicly

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

That would feel entirely natural, but I don't think you've reached the point where the public needs to see that yet.

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One thing I do think you should do

Start a notebook—digital or paper—called:

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.

 

I have a feeling that, years from now, those notes will 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 you something better.

That's exactly as it should be.

 

So yes, I think guiding beliefs are part of Reading Gardens. I just don't think they need to be marketed yet. At the moment, they're doing something more important: they're helping you understand your own work more deeply. And that's the best place for them to begin.