Plants, people, art and artefacts

The Visitor Learning team at Kew were delighted to join up with partners Kinetika and Creative People and Places Hounslow (Lead Partner Watermans Arts Centre) to explore and celebrate Kew's historic and contemporary links with India through the creation of our silk banner, which will be proudly displayed during the Silk River exhibition between October 22th - 27th onsite at the Nash Conservatory, Kew.

The design for our silk started with a fascinating day at Kew for local community groups which began with a tour of the Economic Botany Collection where Kew staff brought to life a huge range of objects and artefacts connected to Kew's links with India, from quinine to indigo via the intriguing Wardian Case.

Having whetted their appetite, participants moved on to Kew's living collection with a tour of the Palm House which illustrated Kew's contemporary role as guardian and conservator of plants with real significance for our cultural and economic connections with India. Finally, an inspirational visit to the Marianne North Gallery gave the group both an insight into a fascinating historical figure, and rich examples of how to represent artistically the diverse plants and objects we'd seen earlier in the day.