{"id":10947,"date":"2025-05-25T15:59:24","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T08:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/garden-variety-va-dundee-hosts-ambitious-design-exhibition\/"},"modified":"2025-05-25T15:59:24","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T08:59:24","slug":"garden-variety-va-dundee-hosts-ambitious-design-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/garden-variety-va-dundee-hosts-ambitious-design-exhibition\/","title":{"rendered":"Garden variety \u2013 V&A Dundee hosts ambitious design exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"

V&A Dundee\u2019s new exhibition<\/a> starts before you get up to the first-floor gallery.<\/p>\n

As visitors enter the main hall of Kengo Kuma\u2019s 2018 waterfront building, they\u2019re confronted by 11 big white flowers dangling from the double-height ceiling.<\/p>\n

Called Shylight<\/em> and created by Amsterdam\u2019s Studio DRIFT<\/a>, the floral forms slowly rise and fall courtesy of robotics, with their silk petals folding inwards, mimicking those flowers which close up at nightfall.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Thought-provoking and visually pleasing, it sets the tone for Garden Futures: Designing With Nature<\/em>, the exhibition which opened last week and runs until 25 January.<\/p>\n

It also hints that not everything in the garden (exhibition) is rosy. Beyond horticulture, there\u2019s also technology \u2013 starting with those Shylight<\/em> robotics \u2013 and art. That\u2019s quite a juggling act.<\/p>\n

As a long-standing allotment holder, it was the horticulture content which drew me in. If I hadn\u2019t had that focus, the exhibition could have been overwhelming: so many topics, so many ideas, so many things to take in.<\/p>\n

This is the touring show\u2019s only UK stop, having debuted at Vitra Design Museum in Germany\u2019s, before appearing across various European venues. Vitra Design Museum\u2019s deputy director Sabrina Handler claims it\u2019s the first major exhibition on the history of modern garden design.<\/p>\n

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The original show comprised 300 objects. V&A Dundee has an extra 200m2 of space to play with, and has added another 130 objects to give it their own spin and highlight some Scottish contributions to the topic.<\/p>\n

Msoma Architects<\/a> were brought in to reimagine the show for Dundee, building on Formafantasma\u2019s<\/a> original concept for the Vitra Design Museum. The graphics were handled by Boris Meister<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In terms of the gardens on show here, they vary from productive spaces for work, rest and play, to places representing spiritual, cultural and political ideas. What they have in common is that they\u2019re all designed spaces.<\/p>\n

Like a virulent form of bindweed, this show is covering a lot of ground. Its material is grouped in sections themed as Paradise, Sanctuary, Retreat and Labour of Love. It\u2019s Paradise that makes the strongest impression \u2013 and rightly so \u2013 with its ice-cream-pink structure.<\/p>\n

The Paradise section, designed by Msoma Architects. Photo by Grant Anderson<\/p>\n

The overarching aim is to demonstrate how garden design impacts us both functionally \u2013 providing food, hence Birmingham\u2019s Uplands Allotments and seed companies \u2013 and aesthetically \u2013 hence William Morris wallpaper and the naturalistic planting of Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf.<\/p>\n

It combines factual photos with artworks, and roams from floral tile panels from 17th Century Persia to a Chinese garden inspired by a video game, and from vast landscapes to hand tools.<\/p>\n

The two wall displays of the taxonomy of tools will add to the dwell time of any visitors who actually garden or grow.<\/p>\n

Biome Collective\u2019s Garden video game<\/p>\n

But for those after interaction, Dundee-based creative studio Biome Collective<\/a> has created Garden,<\/em> a video game that allows players to create a virtual musical garden. They\u2019re also behind the Pollinator Pathway<\/em> digital tool that creates a planting design tailored for the maximum benefit of pollinating insects.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the smell trail \u2013 little wooden boxes whose lids lift to give off a specific scent, such as a cypress tree.<\/p>\n

The image of Prospect, Derek Jarman\u2019s Dungeness house and garden, might feel over-familiar to some. Likewise architect Stefano Boeri\u2019s Bosco Verticale<\/em>, the residential skyscraper covered in greenery in Milan \u2013 but an exhibition like this has to cater to all knowledge levels.<\/p>\n

Stefano Boeri\u2019s Bosco Verticale<\/p>\n

Specific V&A Dundee content includes Seeds of Scotland in the Highlands, which produces resilient seeds. The company\u2019s utilitarian packaging sits alongside photos of vegetables and the seeds themselves \u2013 another stop to linger for any growers in the audience.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also Oban\u2019s Seaweed Gardens, a community-led project, and the garden designed by Arabella Lennox-Boyd for cancer patients at Maggie\u2019s Centre, Dundee. On a smaller scale, there are origami-inspired self-watering plant pots made from marine waste, the brainchild of Glasgow-based company POTR<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And when it comes to Dundee\u2019s own garden future, things could be looking up. The Eden Project has a scheme to transform a defunct gasholder into a vast glasshouse. It\u2019s got planning permission, and the 2025 model of architecture firm Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios<\/a> brings the \u00a3130million idea to life.<\/p>\n

POTR\u2019s self-watering plant pots<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something counter-intuitive about going indoors to experience gardens. But this isn\u2019t the only show tackling that problem.<\/p>\n

Gardens and gardening are having a moment. The exhibition Soil<\/em>, which explored soil\u2019s vital role in our planet\u2019s future, finished at London\u2019s Somerset House in April, getting 50,000 visitors in three months.<\/p>\n

Now Garden Futures<\/em> is off the ground, V&A Dundee will be thinking about how to spend the \u00a32.6million of government funding which was confirmed in February.<\/p>\n

The plan is to improve the permanent Scottish galleries. The museum\u2019s director, Leonie Bell says there\u2019s demand for them to be bigger.<\/p>\n

Her ideas so far include expanding the time frame to go as far back as Skara Brae, the prehistoric village on Orkney, and to explore Scotland\u2019s influence on global design, for example in fashion. Exhibition designers, watch this space.<\/p>\n

The taxonomy of tools walls. Photo by Grant Anderson
\nArabella Lennox-Boyd\u2019s garden for Maggie\u2019s Centre, Dundee.<\/p>\n

\nWhat to read next: <\/strong>Drinkall Dean and Kit Studio transform kids\u2019 TV show into \u201cgross\u201d exhibition<\/a> | Studioshaw\u2019s re-use focused Marilyn Monroe show<\/a> | Templo\u2019s tectonic identity for the British pavilion at the Venice Biennale<\/a> | Immersive International unveil the UK\u2019s first \u201cstory-led pavilion\u201d at Expo 2025<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

V&A Dundee\u2019s new exhibition starts before you get up to the first-floor gallery. 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