The Gardener documents the project that won the inaugural Syngenta Photography Award, photographed by Jan Brykczynski and published by Dewi Lewis Publishing in 2015. Born in Poland, Brykczynski is a founding partner of the Sputnik Photos collective. The work extends his earlier projects, in which he travelled to the outer corners of Europe to explore the lives of people in rural areas; his first book, Boiko (2014), explored rural life in the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains, and his work on Icelandic farms led to the Syngenta award.

The book looks at how city dwellers try to connect with nature, documenting urban gardens in Nairobi, New York, Warsaw, and Yerevan in Armenia. Brykczynski approaches the subject as if the world were a single village whose inhabitants seek to meet similar, very human needs. His focus is on low-income communities, where people respond to a basic need rather than any passing fad. When they create their gardens, improvisation is all: residents make use of what is available, often re-using materials entirely out of context and in truly original ways.

His particular interest is how these spaces are arranged and how structures for cultivation are created spontaneously. In some places these are an expression of group collaboration; in others they highlight individual imagination and the inventiveness of their creators. Yet there are surprising similarities across different continents, evidencing a collective consciousness and a common humanity.

Essays are by Malu Halasa and Jocelyn C. Zuckerman. The hardback runs 88 pages, 290 x 200mm, with 43 colour plates. Brykczynski has exhibited at Noorderlicht Gallery, Leica Gallery Warsaw, the National Museum in Gdansk, PhotoDoc in Utrecht, and Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, and has published in outlets including the New York Times International, Die Welt, The Independent, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and Lensculture. He is represented by the Anzenberger Agency.