The Root Zone
Bicentennial Glasshouse, Royal Horticultural Society Garden, Wisley, UK
Size: 200sq.m.
Date: 2006 - 2007
Fit-out budget: £500,000
Date: 2006 - 2007
Fit-out budget: £500,000
Throughout the second half of 2006 and early 2007 Neal Potter acted as the creative catalyst within a multi-disciplinary team at the Royal Horticultural Society to conceive and design an underground exhibition on roots within their new Bicentennial Glasshouse. The Glasshouse was opened by HM Queen Elizabeth 2 in June 2007.
(Below) A series of five interactive exhibits (high and low-tech) allow visitors
to discover buried "treasure", friends and foe within the soil.
(Below right) A series of suspended monitors show
time lapse images of the enormous amount of activity
within the earth. The monitors are interspersed with
real roots extracted from the Wisley garden. Periscopes
remind visitors what is happening above ground.
Artists and schoolchildren were invited to
provide their interpretation on the theme of
roots. The schools' project will be an
on-going programme of changing artworks.
Poetry and quotations are cut into
the exhibition walls.
Other exhibits have electronic graphics
which can be easily changed by in-house
staff to reflect the seasonal changes.
