Growing a new way of looking at the world
Inverleith House at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is going to become Climate House, which will bring together the worlds of art and science, explains Emma Nicolson, RGBE’S head of creative programmes
‘How many people think twice about a leaf? Yet the leaf is the chief product and phenomenon of life: this is a green world, with animals comparatively few and small, and all dependent upon the leaves. By leaves we live. Some people have strange ideas that they live by money. They think energy is generated by the circulation of coins. But the world is mainly a vast leaf-colony, growing on and forming a leafy soil, not a mere mineral mass: and we live not by the jingling of our coins, but by the fullness of our harvests.
“But growth seems slow: and people are all out for immediate results, like immediate votes or immediate money. A garden takes years and years to grow – ideas also take time to grow, and while a sower knows when his corn will ripen, the sowing of ideas is, as yet, a far less certain affair.”
These quotes were taken from Patrick Geddes’s last lecture at the University of Dundee in 1919. Geddes is well known as a generalist, most famous as a town planner and conservationist but he was also a great ecologist. Gardens were an important feature of his social experiments and town planning initiatives.
He believed that gardens and green spaces were essential for:
Encouraging people to be active and to be outdoors Producing local food Brightening up and improving the local environment Community cohesion Learning about bio-diversity, life forms, and the changing seasons
Taking responsibility and stewardship for the local environment
It is perhaps little known that in 1880, Patrick Geddes was appointed Assistant in Practical Botany at Edinburgh University and was based at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh making him an important link to our past here at the Garden. I believe there is something in those words that helps us take his principles and imagine something just as relevant to our situation today.
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh was established in 1670 during an era of famine, plague and witch trials, by two physicians Robert Sibbald and Andrew Balfour. Their vision was to create a garden that would supply the apothecaries and physicians of Edinburgh with medicinal plants to help improve the wellbeing of the people of Edinburgh. Now, four centuries later, our vision is to transform Inverleith House in the garden into Climate House – an institute for ecology at the edge, reconnecting our gallery both to its roots as a centre for medical innovation and its future as a hub that will promote the synergy between art and science as we face one of the most significant challenges of the 21 century.
Our climate crisis and the coronavirus pandemic have one thing in common; both demonstrate to us; in the most vivid way we have seen in recent decades that we live in a biological network where everything is connected. Geddes’ words and this sense of connection were instrumental in re-imagining a new future for Inverleith House Gallery and wider art activity at the Botanics. Having listened to colleagues, artists and others I wanted to reflect all of this when formulating our new manifesto for the arts ‘By Leaves We Survive’.
It helps us take our art beyond illustration, meaning it is the very process of engaging with the art that enables us to think about new ways of living within the planet.
How does the art we offer prompt new ways of thinking/ living/planning for the future? How do artists move minds? How do we create a place flexible enough for a multiplicity of voices? What makes Inverleith House and RBGE distinctive? Geddes’ principles and these questions helped to inform the concept of Climate House turning Inverleith House into ‘an institute for ecology at the edge’.
The promise of Climate House is that through Inverleith House’s proximity to the world of plants, the richness of scholarship associated with the Botanics and our incredible global networks, we can rethink the role of an art institution in the age of climate crisis. Inverleith House sits in a constellation of plants and science, now more than ever we need to be pooling our knowledge and resources gathering together the arts and sciences to imagine the possibilities for a better future and making that happen.
This has been accelerated by securing the Outset Transformative Grant, a major funding award from Outset Contemporary
Art Fund, the leading international philanthropic enterprise. Jointly awarded to Royal Botanic Garden and Serpentine Galleries this unique and invaluable support will enable us to establish our projects Climate House and Back to Earth as well as jointly establish the General Ecology Network, a new network and think tank of organisations at the intersection of art and ecology.
Through the General Ecology Network we intend to access those at the very forefront of ecological concerns and in turn share this with peers and artists who can provide citizens of all generations and backgrounds with opportunities to discover, explore and engage with this
It is not just the connection of artists and scientists that is important but the connection we have with our visitors, locally and internationally
vital field of knowledge. This exciting collaboration with the Serpentine will bring the ecological expertise at RBGE to the forefront of climate crisis campaigns in art, seeing leading artists develop work supported by the centre of excellence in plant science, horticulture and education.
As a botanic garden we have a unique history of high quality programming in the arts and this award acknowledges an exciting juncture for us as we launch our new manifesto for the arts which places at its heart ecology and how we must live for a better future. We will explore contemporary art’s role in helping to understand the natural world. From digital visualisation and mapping of research data to new work by Turner Prize nominee Christine Borland the programme aims to play an important role in opening up dialogues and sharing work creatively with our audiences and inviting their responses to the crisis we are all facing.
Readers can see the full manifesto on the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh website which seeks to engage the 21st century explorer – an explorer who listens to voices less heard, refuses to conform to the boundary between culture and nature, and is eager to imagine ways of living for the future. It is not just the connection of artists and scientists that is important but the connection we have with our visitors, locally and internationally. As art spills out from Climate House into the gardens we want to engage with visitors. With that in mind in 2021 artist Keg de
Souza will create an immersive installation or conversation and action, welcoming the broadest possible audience to challenge the climate crisis in conversation and collaboration with groups and communities in Edinburgh.
The world is at a crossroads. And as we work towards welcoming people back to the Garden and Inverleith House, we believe it will be through art and science that we help people find meaningful ways forward.