Kew Gardens exhibition showcases Queer Nature in Victorian glasshouse
The diversity of nature informed the latest exhibition at London's Kew Gardens, which features installations including a garden designed to "break the binary" and a "deeply queer" textile pattern by designer Adam Nathaniel Furman.
Queer Nature, which is on show inside the botanical garden's Victorian glasshouse Temperate House, is comprised of four different installations.
At the centre of the building, American artist Jeffrey Gibson presented his largest UK commission to date, called House of Spirits, which was hung from the glass ceiling and designed to catch the light.
The colourful fabric features botanical illustrations as well as writing informed by "Gibson's own perspectives on queerness and nature", according to Kew.
Gibson drew on New York's ballroom scene as well as the work and life of artist and gay rights activist Derek Jarman when creating the installation.
In an adjacent room, garden designer Patrick Featherstone installed Breaking the Binary, a temporary garden display created together with the Kew Youth Forum.
The installation saw the designer change the layout of the room to accommodate curving flowerbeds, in which he planted a collection of species that reproduce in ways that challenge the traditional way of categorising plants as male and female.
"There's lots of variety in the way that plants reproduce and their gender is also quite complicated," Featherstone told Dezeen.
"So if nature is going to be used in this human metaphor, then it's worth scrutinising further and seeing the diversity there is."
"What's natural and what's scientific are both phrases that can be questionable and have been weaponised against queer communities," he added.
"By debunking that sort of attitude, by looking at what nature and science really are, you realise that's not an argument against something."
Featherstone also commissioned transgender illustrators to create information boards as part of the installation, which he believes is extra relevant at a time when trans people are often discriminated against.
"Queer people have often been told that they are unnatural, but I think that gender nonconforming people are often told that it's unscientific to say that you're one thing or that you're self-identifying," Featherstone said.
"And I think that's where we need to look at what science is. It's not just facts, it's politics, too. And I think that it's really helpful for trans people to have some symbolism and metaphors in their life."
Queer Nature also features Queer Voices, an installation by London-based designer Furman, who created an "immersive space" inside two octangular greenhouses in Temperate House.
The structure was made by hanging five-metre-long fabric pieces from the ceiling. These were printed with a pattern that features multiple plants, including ones that reference queer history such as the green carnation worn by writer Oscar Wilde.
Other plants include lavender, pansies, violets and carnations.
"I wanted the pattern to be deeply British and deeply queer all at once," Furman said. "Queer life has always been present in design history, but sometimes it has had to lurk beneath the surface. There's a radicality in that."
The installation also featured video interviews with LGBTQ+ scientists and horticulturists, historians, artists, writers and more.
Kew Gardens also commissioned artists LiLi K Bright and Ama Josephine Budge Johnstone to create Reverberations, two spoken word pieces that are played throughout Temperate House.
The exhibition, which is on show throughout October, will also feature events including cabaret, drag performances and talks.
"I think it's really nice to draw attention to nature because it's a very forgiving, interesting and diverse thing that we can take inspiration from, rather than being focused on what society wants us to do," Featherstone concluded.
"I think there's a lot of strengths to be taken from looking at nature."
Other recent projects that focus on the LGBTQ+ community include a "queer monument" designed by Furman to celebrate the Commonwealth Games and an atlas of 90 LGBTQ+ spaces from around the world.
The photography is courtesy of Kew Gardens unless otherwise stated.
Queer Nature is on show at Kew Gardens from 30 September to 29 October 2023. For more exhibitions, events and talks in architecture and design, visit Dezeen Events Guide.
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