Salla VartiainenLondon – The Garden Museum – British Flower week 2024
Originally posted: 240614
I’m drinking tea in the Garden cafe in London. In the garden, outside of the window, a strange plant is reaching for the sky. It looks like something you have in a pot at home but now it’s taller than a human and has beautiful big leaves that could be used as umbrellas.
The Garden cafe slowly fills up with people. Most of them are 60+ and they sound very British to me, although I might be wrong. Calm music is playing discretely in the background.
The Garden museum
The Garden museum is a small museum located right next to the Lambert bridge in London. The museum is hosted in an old church and today there is both a small exhibition about Painters and their gardens and an exhibition that is part of the British Flower Week.
I pay the entrance of 15 pounds and enter.
The strange plant turned out to be Tetrapanax Papyrifer – the Ricepaper plant!
The British Flower week
The British flower week is an annual event. Started 2013 by New Covent Garden Flower market, the events main purpose is to promote the British cut flower industry. The event takes place all over England and, among other programs this year, 5 British flower artists have been invited by the Garden museum in London to create big flower installations inside the museum. This years theme is “reimagine”.
The 5 invited floral designers are Swallows and Damsons, Lunaria Deborah Bain, Hamish Powel, Debrah J Flowers and Milli Proust of Alma Proust studio.
The British flower week is an annually occuring event and exhibitions and events are happening all over England
The flower installations – Swallows and Damsons
The first installation greets you even before you get to the counter to pay the entrance fee. It is Swallows and Damsons piece “Back to the garden”. A big circle stands in the middle of an alcove, light is streaming in through the lead glass window behind it, illuminating the piece.
The piece is about the circle of life and consists of both flowers traditionally considered as weeds and cultivated flowers arranged in a round circle.
Lunaria
The next installation is by Lunaria.
A strange formation of dry weeds hangs from the ceiling. They are twisted and flow across the room partly blocking it. Next to it, a white sheet lays in the middle of a small patch of earth. It´s like someone has decided to take a nap in the middle of a field.
The piece is based on a childhood memory and contains flowers like Queen Anns lace (Ammi Majus), Bladder Campion (Silene Vulgaris) and Garden cress (Lepidium Sativum) among many others.
I like the fact that they name the flowers they have used for the pieces. And also the other materials that have been used to build structures and frames.
Hamish Powel
“Bouquet” by Hamish Powel is the third installation. A cardboard sculpture with blooming flowers in their midst create an illusion of a bouquet. If you stand in the right place that is. Which I unfortunately didn´t do. Which left me kind of confused about the arranged cardboard pieces on sticks.
In the work, the artist is bringing forth all the skills that are needed to be a florist and a floral designer. This “Bouquet” is also the only work in the exhibition that has some color in it.
Deborah J Flowers
The forth installation is “The Garden of Eden” by Deborah J Flowers. This composition draws it´s inspiration from the Bible and is an attempt to create a small piece paradise on earth.
I really like the idea of having a garden indoors. I could easily see my self having tea here ever morning while reading a book.
Alma Proust studio
The last installation in the exhibition is Alma Proust studios “From Bloom to Seed” which is a miniature version of the artists and her business partners own garden in West Sussex. It´s a celebration of seeds and the way they simultaneously contain the past, the present and the future.
I actually forgot to take a picture of it! So you just have to imagine it in your mind. Or check out this article on the Garden museums website, where they present all the participants.
In the next part of this article, we check out the exhibition Gardening Bohemia: Bloomsbury women outdoors exhibition, and summon up the visit to the Garden Museum in London!
Stay tuned!
xoxo/Salla V
Originally posted: 240614