Garden Museum

Photo ripped shamelessly from website of Dow Jones Architects

Last week, threatened green space catalysed national protests in Turkey, underscoring the importance of parks and gardens to wellbeing.  In the same week I was fortunate enough to appreciate a range of parks and gardens around London: Hilly Fields, Kensington Gardens, and Bonnington Square (alongside religious and political freedom, but that’s another story).  So it was fitting time to visit the Garden Museum.  I had (shamefully) not been since prior to their subtle but spectacular refurbishment in 2008, when it was still the "Museum of Garden History".

The new “space within a space” is practically perfect; I’m a big fan of creative uses for redundant churches and the setting remains quirky, but staff now have a multifunctional space that better fits its range of programming.  The Garden Museum has consistently affirmed its commitment to sustainability (even hosting a sustainability internship) so it is no surprise that the materials have come from sustainable forests, and that the utmost sensitivity to the historic environment was emphasised in the architectural designs.  The one slightly disorienting result of the spatial organisation is that the main centre of the space feels curiously empty, with displays and permanent functional areas moved to the margins.  This is undoubtedly a necessity wrought by use for public and private events, and it does allow a permanent children’s activity space.

The real coup is the temporary exhibition, Green Fuse: The Work of Dan Pearson, on until 20 October. There is a new self-contained gallery space (again, new in a relative sense – it has been 4 years!) that separates visitors totally from the main space.  The effect is stunning, at least for this particular exhibition, as the experience is totally immersive.

Even before visiting the temporary exhibition, I was drawn to a sculpture associated with Pearson on display in the choir area of the church.  Rosa Nguyen’s “Tree Folly with Cercis” is a transformational work, playful and spectacular.  It dresses the branches of a dead tree from Pearson’s former garden in Peckham with ceramic shapes of garlic, gourds, birds, oakgalls and more, creating a miniature wonderland.  Sadly my phone battery was dead, so no pictures, but all the more reason to go discover it for yourself.

I was struck by the parallels between the representation of Pearson’s life and work and that of another artist featured elsewhere in South London: the exhibition “A Life in Colour” about textile artist Kaffe Fassett at the Fashion and Textile Museum.  Both chart an awakening awareness of colour and nature, and illuminates the personal interactions that influenced the subject’s life and work.  While Fassett’s career in textiles grew out of a series of chance encounters (including learning to knit on a train from Scotland to London), Pearson’s experiences with gardens began in early childhood at the delightfully named family home of “Upyonder” on the borders of Hampshire and Sussex.

As a curator, my biggest personal challenge is that I don’t naturally have a good eye for spatial design and layout, so I am always particularly impressed with exhibitions that do something innovative with layouts.  Despite the gallery being quite a small space, the curatorial team managed to cram in Pearson’s entire education and career, four video and photographic displays, and an installation of a Hanasumi garden (charcoal gardens native to Japan), without the space feeling, well, crammed.  The collage of notebooks, school reports, photographs, newspaper articles, and photographs was a work of art in itself.

If I have one complaint about the exhibition, it is that the videos are too long to enjoy on even my relatively good attention span.  I admit to not catching if the text gave the full length of the individual films, but I must have sat for at least 10 minutes through just one of the films, and it wasn’t even over when I moved on.  This is only a shame because the films alternate between two different gardens, one of Maggie’s Place in Lambeth and one of the Millennium Forest in Hokkaido, Japan, and the full length of the two must be about 30 minutes.  Few museums show films this long, with the exception of contemporary art pieces, but I don’t think for a moment that this was curatorial self-indulgence.  Rather it seems in keeping with Pearson’s own views on his work.  The third and final video is an interview with the horticulturalist himself, along with a tour of his own garden in Somerset.  He says “I think it’s important that we don’t overwhelm” and that gardens are places that “should be discovered gently”.  The beautiful raw wood Adirondack chairs did make this a highly comfortable experience, but visitors should be warned to schedule the time into their visit, and be prepared to be patient.

Also on display are a permanent exhibition and – crucially – a garden.  The Garden Museum became such because of its connection to the Johns Tradescant Elder and Younger.  The first famous modern gardeners were also founders of the Britain’s first museum, with the “Ark” displayed in their home in Lambeth forming the nucleus of Elias Ashmole’s collection (now the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford).  The permanent display resides in a lofty balcony space, and is not quite as good quality as the temporary exhibition, unfortunately.  The captions are a bit messy in terms of spelling and grammar, and as a non-gardener, I was frustrated by the lack of explanation of certain terms and names for tools.  What on earth is the thing that looks like a cheese grater and is captioned as a “sweet pea counter”?  Nevertheless, the draw of all specialist museums is that they illuminate the quotidian with curatorial insight.  My favourite display was of Edwardian photographs showing people posing formally with their lawnmowers.  Here the captions point out that, of course, lawnmowers were expensive and high profile consumer goods, so naturally people wanted to show them off.

The garden is both a display and teaching tool.  It was a pilgrimage to the graves of the Tradescants in 1976 that caused Rosemary Nicholson to found the museum on this site, the former St. Mary-at-Lambeth.  The refurbished grave is spectacular and plays on the travels and curious collections of the Tradescants, from the Pyramids to a six-headed dragon.  The garden also highlights the sustainability offer of the museum; a sign informs about a partnership with the Royal Parks who are able to compost the debris from large plane trees that line the garden, in exchange for historical training for their own horticulture interns.

The café was shutting early for a private event, and I had just had a big lunch, so I have not visited myself, but I have on good authority it is one of the best museum cafés in London.  The shop has a sad lack of indoor gardening equipment that matches my sad lack of an outdoor gardening space.  Surely missing a trick, but a lovely selection of quirky gifts and practical items all the same.

The Garden Museum is planning even further developments, including the refurbishment and use of the crypt, and I have no doubt that this, one of the most progressive and ambitious small museums in London, will be worth many return visits.

Green Fuse: The Work of Dan Pearson is on until 20 October.  The Garden Museum is an independent trust and charges an entry fee.  Worth it.