Travel Treasures

2 December - 16 January 2011

Opening hours

• Tuesday to Saturday: 1pm-4.30pm,
• Sunday: 2pm-4.30pm

Travel Treasures is a collaboration between the Royal Botanic Gardens, Orleans House Gallery and local community groups and artists. A series of creative art workshops have been delivered in Kew over the past couple of months in order to produce community art inspired by the Marianne North Gallery and the extraordinary story of Marianne North herself.

Marianne produced her 832 paintings in the Gallery between 1871 and 1885, visiting and painting in 15 countries across 5 continents - an amazing feat given the difficulties of travel at that time and an extremely rare occurrence for an unmarried woman. In all she painted nearly 1000 plant species, many of them barely known. She donated her paintings, and a gallery to house them, to Kew.

We have explored themes of travel and journeys, plants and memories, using different materials and techniques under the guidance of local artists. A number of local community groups have been encouraged to take part in the art-making and the creative exploration of the Marianne North Gallery and Kew Gardens. Visitors of the Travel Treasures exhibition can admire landscapes made of felt, plaster and tape sculptures, hand made books, photographic or clay plant portraits. All the art work created is displayed in the exhibition.

Newhouse Centre

Newhouse Centre Students worked with artist Sally Richards, making coloured tape sculptures of their own bodies to create figures of an 'eternal traveller'. This person may be posing to look at the brightly coloured landscape around, picking up the travel journal to write notes, or reaching for a camera to capture the strangely shaped plants growing by the road where the suitcase has been left...before moving on to discover the next Travel Treasure.

Octagon Club - Three Wings Trust

"What would you pack for a long journey to a faraway exotic country?" This is the question artist Louis Bourns asked young people from the Octagon Club in Twickenham. They responded by creating casts with plaster of luggage and small personal items to put inside them.

Activities for visitors to the Exhibition

2 - 4:30pm on 3 December, 10 December and 9 January.
Free drop-in activity.
Suitable for all ages.
No booking necessary.
Children must be accompanied by an adult.

Exploring objects from the "Marianne's travelling trunk," this workshop unravels the story of her extraordinary travels around the world.