Jan Bogaerts became fascinated by the oldest neighbourhood of Amsterdam, de Wallen, during his project Reizigers in de Stad. A series about public transport in Amsterdam which he realised under the authority of the Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst in 1987. He discovered that the colourful neighbourhood between the Damrak and the Gelderse Kade had not been photo-graphed before in the framework of the Amsterdam documentary photo assignments. Under commission of the Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Bogaerts started photographing the Wallen in 1995. The photographs shown in The Garden of Eden are a selection of portaits of striking people and situations which were taken between the Queen's Birthday and Christmas 1995. Thanks to their static form and their dynamic content, the portraits have become a symbol of the neighbourhood. A two-faced neighbourhood, which is on the one hand a small local community and on the other hand a red light district. As it does not require sinicure to photograph a neighbourhood such as de Wallen, Bogaerts decided to continue working on the project to finally be able to create a timeless document of the oldest neighbourhood of Amsterdam.