Exhibitions

Emma Young (image by Michael Haines)

EXHIBITION REBOOT: 2022

AFTER TWO YEARS OF COVID DISRUPTIONS, FOUNDATION & FRIENDS IS REINVIGORATING ITS EXHIBITION PROGRAM WITH A DOUBLE DOSE OF ARTISANS IN THE GARDENS AND A NEW EVENT HIGHLIGHTING ENDANGERED SPECIES. DAVID CARROLL REPORTS.

Artisans has traditionally been Foundation & Friends’ most successful exhibition, attracting major crowds and raising vital funds. For the first time, two separate shows will take place this year – the first in March and the second in late October.

Due to lockdowns, last year’s Artisans exhibition was restricted to an online event, which Exhibition Project Manager Julia Sparkes says was surprisingly successful, with strong sales of smaller, easily-shipped works, particularly homewares and jewellery.

“We learnt a lot from the success of the online event, which made the smaller artworks accessible to a wider audience, including people located right across Australia,” says Sparkes.

“As a result, we are working towards loading more artworks onto our online store, Botanic Gardens Gallery, and making those works available yearround. We will also, during the physical exhibitions, include more information online about the featured artists and their work, so that people can learn more about them.”

While the response to the online exhibition was pleasing, Sparkes says a digital gallery is no substitute for seeing artworks in person.

“There is certainly an overwhelming desire among the artists and the public to return Artisans to the Garden this year in order to reconnect with a treasured public space. The two Artisans events will also have their own distinct personalities, providing even more opportunities for leading artists to show their works.”

Planning has also begun on Endangered, a new exhibition due to open in 2023 and designed to further expand a portfolio of scientificallythemed shows that currently includes Botanica, Fungi and Transformation.

Sparkes says artworks chosen for the show will reference threatened Australian species and environments – from plants to animals and insects.

“We will take a broad view, but the works will focus on something we need to draw attention to,” she says.

“The broader aim of our sciencethemed exhibitions is to raise awareness among the public of the important research being undertaken at the Gardens. At the same time, we want these events to attract people who might not normally follow and collect art, but who have a connection or an interest in science, conservation and the environment.”

One thing all future exhibitions will have in common, says Sparkes, is “greater diversity in terms of the kinds of artwork on offer.

“The last two years has shown us that while it’s great to have big, showstopping artworks in our exhibitions, it’s also vital that we offer a really broad selection of smaller pieces at a range of price points. We want to make it easier than ever before for people to buy a little bit of art, and in doing so, to take a little piece of the Garden home with them. Ultimately, art makes people happy and enriches their personal spaces, and thanks to COVID we all know how important those spaces are.”

ARTISANS IN THE GARDENS 2022

26 MARCH–3 APRIL 10AM–4PM Opening Night: 25 March 29 OCTOBER–6 NOVEMBER 10AM–4PM Opening Night: 28 October Lion Gate Lodge, Royal Botanic Garden botanicgardens.org.au/artisans

THE ARTISANS ARE FINALLY BACK IN THE GARDEN

With 10 new artists, an expanded range of artworks and a new curator, the first Artisans in the Gardens exhibition for 2022 will be anything but a re-staging of the event scuttled by last year’s lockdowns.

Among the artists whose work will take centre stage – after not being featured on last year’s onlineonly exhibition – are Jen Mallinson, Scott Ingram and Jimmy Tobin, all of whom will contribute major outdoor sculptures.

Also taking part in March will be Barbara Romalis and Elisabeth Cummings, who are revered for their collaborative painted ceramics. And visitors to the exhibition will get to see some of the last pottery created by the always-popular Liz Hardy, who passed away in 2021.

Exhibition Project Manager Julia Sparkes says many of the artists who did feature in the online exhibition have also created new pieces. Overall, the show features more than 2,000 artworks across a broad range of mediums, with jewellery, ceramics, sculpture, hand-blown glass and textiles.

“Artisans will in no way be a simple rehash of the online exhibition,” says Sparkes. “This is a fresh and vibrant event that will take place in an environment that’s impossible to replicate in a digital format.”

This year’s Artisans exhibitions will also benefit from the talents of Libby Wright, who has taken over from Sandy Crichton as the new curator. Wright forged a career in the finance and investment world before returning to Australia to raise a family, take on a variety of volunteer roles and pursue her passion for new and emerging artists.

As always, the exhibition will be supported by an exciting program of events, including a presentation by artist Colleen Southwell, who will discuss how her connection with her country garden influences her three-dimensional paper sculptures. For further details, see this issue’s diary section.

UNEARTHING HIDDEN TREASURES

BY SCANNING CLOSE TO A MILLION SPECIMENS, THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM OF NEW SOUTH WALES HAS LAUNCHED ITS COLLECTION INTO THE DIGITAL AGE, BUT ALONG THE WAY IT’S ALSO UNCOVERED SOME PRICELESS HISTORICAL TREASURES.

Over the past three years, the Digitisation Project – to which Foundation & Friends has donated a million dollars – has seen Gardens’ staff and volunteers sort through around 70,000 boxes in order to identify suitable specimens to capture as high-resolution images.

During that process two items were discovered that pre-date the Herbarium’s collection of 824 specimens collected in Australia in 1770 by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander while on Captain Cook’s first Pacific voyage.

One of the specimens is the herb Parietaria debilis, which Banks and Solander collected in 1769 from Tolaga, Opuragi (now Mercury Bay) and Motuaro on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. The other is the snowberry (Gaultheria antipoda), which the pair also collected in New Zealand in 1769.

Collections Manager Hannah McPherson said there were different theories as to how the specimens were overlooked.

“We’ve never audited and looked at every specimen in the collection – we have audited the Banks and Solander collection several times – but never before this project did we recognise these two New Zealand specimens should be united with it,” McPherson said.

“It’s like doing a spring clean but with priceless historic specimens. No institution that holds collections knows exactly what they have, but at the end of the Digitisation Project we will have recorded 99% of our collection.”

The two specimens will now be added to the ‘special collections vault’ in the new National Herbarium at the Australian Botanic Garden in Mount Annan, which is on track to open in late March.

Digitisation Manager Andre Badiou said the specimens were still in remarkable condition considering their age and journey to England and back.

“[Banks and Solander] would have kept thousands of specimens in a leaky ship and kept changing the paper they were in to keep them dry for years, and you can imagine what the weather was like,” Badiou said. “What they were

Gaultheria antipoda

‘It’s like doing a spring clean but with priceless historic specimens‘

doing was really quite amazing. They collected thousands and thousands of specimens around the world before they got lodged in herbariums.”

Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust Chief Executive Denise Ora says the Digitisation Project will eventually allow people around the world to access information and data to advance research, education and conservation* .

“We’re taking a snapshot of these specimens that will last forever in a truly unique project of international significance that raises the profile of the Australian Institute of Botanical Science and puts us on the world stage,” Ora said.

With the plant specimen imaging nearing completion, the Digitisation Project is now turning its focus towards capturing the Herbarium’s prized botanical illustrations, which include the world’s largest collection of Margaret Flockton originals.

The Gardens’ botanical illustrators, Catherine Wardrop and Lesley Elkan, recently revealed that in preparing for the Digitisation Project they too had uncovered ‘lost’ works, including hundreds by Flockton, who in 1901 became the Gardens’ first permanent botanical illustrator (The Gardens, Summer 2021/22).

“We thought Margaret did around 2,500 illustrations in her 26 years with the Gardens,” says Wardrop. “But, as a result of our sifting, it looks like the figure may be more up around 4,000. She was just incredibly prolific.”

*Every digitised specimen in the National Herbarium’s collection will be published in the Atlas of Living Australia.