About this Event
5x15 co-curates with Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
5x15 in partnership with Rathbones
Join us in May at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for ‘Art and Nature’, a unique 5x15 drinks party in the glorious setting of the historic Orangery. Celebrating creativity, imagination and the wonders of the world around us, we’ll be joined by a stellar line-up of leading artists, writers and thinkers, each of whom will illuminate the vital relationship between art, culture and the environment.
Art and nature have always been intertwined. Throughout the history of literature, music and the visual arts, the natural world has been one of the greatest inspirations and most important themes. Today, as natural landscapes continue to be endangered by the effects of biodiversity loss and climate change, artists are responding to the environmental crises in urgent and inspiring ways. Now more than ever, art allows us to reimagine the future.
Tickets for this event include a drinks and canapé reception, as well as early access to Kew Gardens from 2pm on the day.
Speakers
Sir Ben Okri OBE is a poet, novelist, and playwright. His novel, The Famished Road, won the Booker Prize in 1991. His works have been translated into 26 languages. He has been a Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Ben Okri's books have won numerous international prizes. The recipient of many honorary doctorates, he is a vice-president of the English Centre of International PEN and was presented the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum for his outstanding contribution to the Arts and cross-cultural understanding. His book Astonishing the Gods was chosen by the BBC as one of the most influential novels written over the last 300 years. His latest book, Tiger Work: Stories, Essays and Poems About Climate Change, evokes the magic of nature and the urgency of protecting the environment.
Cornelia Parker CBE RA is a leading English sculptor and installation artist who was shortlisted for The Turner Prize in 1997. Parker had major exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2019 and at Tate Britain in 2022. She was the first woman artist to undertake The Met Museum’s annual roof commission, creating an installation Transitional Object (PsychoBarn) 2017. The piece was constructed from the timbers of an old red barn, which were transformed into the set of Hitchcock’s film Psycho. The piece was later exhibited in the courtyard of the Royal Academy in 2018. Cornelia Parker’s work features in prominent collections such as MoMA and Metropolitan Museum, New York, the Tate Gallery, the British Council, the Henry Moore Foundation, The Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth, Texas, and the Yale Centre for British Art.
Chris Thorogood is a botanist and lecturer at the University of Oxford, where he holds the position of Deputy Director and Head of Science at Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum, and a Visiting Professor at the University of the Philippines. His research focuses on the evolution of parasitic and carnivorous plants, taxonomic diversity in biodiversity hotspots around the world, and biomimetics - exploring the potential applications of plants in technology. An author and broadcaster, he makes regular appearances on TV and radio and is also an award-winning botanical illustrator and wildlife artist. Obsessed with plants, he is on a mission to make us see them differently, and realize how we, they, and our planet, are all connected. His new book is called Pathless Forest: The Quest to Save the World’s Largest Flowers. It’s an inspirational, mind-bending story of his obsession to protect and save Rafflesia, the vanishingly rare, metre-wide, monstrously beautiful, stinking ‘corpse flowers’ that have captured his imagination since his childhood.
Further speakers to be announced soon...
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Orangery, via Elizabeth Gate, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, TW9 3AE, Richmond, United Kingdom
GBP 30.00