Botanic garden picked to co-host augmented global reality artworks

Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden is to host an augmented reality exhibition being held simultaneously across six countries.

Work by an international group of leading artists will be on show in 12 gardens in the UK, USA, South Africa, Canada, Israel and Australia in September.

They include the Eden Project in Cornwall, Denver Botanic Gardens and Jerusalem Botanical Gardens.

The Seeing the Invisible exhibition will encourage visitors to download an app to their smartphones, through which they will be able to view the international artwork in a mixture of floral settings across the world.

Among the artists taking part are Ai Weiwei, Refik Anadol, El Anatsui and Isaac Julien.

Mohammed Kazem,

Sigalit Landau, Sarah Meyohas, Pamela Rosenkranz and Timur Si-Qin will also showcase their work.

Emma Nicolson, head of creative programming at the venue, said: “Seeing the Invisible has found a way to transform the experience of visiting the gardens and how we engage with public artworks by bringing together the real world and the virtual world.

“I’m excited to see how this ground-breaking exhibition will encourage new visitors to the gardens and showcase this beautiful setting in a new light.”

Seeing the Invisible co-curator Hadas Maor said: “This exhibition allows artists who have not previously worked in AR to expand on ideas that are central to their practice in entirely new ways.”