This autumn, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew celebrates the season of fiery colour with a brand new festival, featuring a stunning exhibition showcasing the immersive art of Rebecca Louise Law and intriguing botanical art by Lindsay Sekulowicz as well as two major sculptural exhibitions in the gardens, one of contemporary pieces curated by Handmade in Britain and the other a series of specially commissioned pieces inspired by Kew itself.

The exhibition Life in Death by British artist Rebecca Louise Law is a celebration of nature as a sculptural form and will be hosted inside the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. Rebecca Louise Law will suspend 1000 individually sewn hanging garlands, composed of approximately 375,000 beautifully preserved plants and flowers. Inspired by the ancient Egyptian preserved funeral garlands of Ramesses II held in Kew’s own collection dating back to 1300BC, this hypnotic and immersive form will create natural pathways, allowing visitors to weave their way through, and to observe nature without the usual constraints of time or decay. Accompanying Law’s mesmerising sculpture will be a rare public display of Kew’s fragile and beautiful ancient Egyptian wreaths draped over mummies and coffins which accompanied the dead to the afterlife.

A true labour of love, Law’s exhibition will give a new lease of life to her personal collections of dried plants, some over ten years old.

Rebecca Louise Law said: “I am honoured to be creating an installation that takes its inspiration from The Shirley Sherwood Collection, Kew Herbarium and Economic Botany Collection, showcasing the wonder of the flower and its material properties. It’s difficult to flow against the cycle of life and death, trying to preserve and hold on to a material that traditionally has little or no value in a modern culture. The natural world has been at the core of my artwork and I have always longed to create art that enables the viewer to find serenity within nature, transporting them into a space without the constraints of time and where there is still life in death.”

A book called Rebecca Louise Law, Life in Death, is being produced by Kew to accompany the exhibition, and will be the first to record Rebecca Louise Law’s comprehensive collection of artworks to date. It will document the evolution of Law’s unique artistic practice, via a series of beautifully documented photographs as well as a unique insight into the life and influences of the artist.

The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art will also play host the Plantae Amazonicae exhibition. A collaborative project between the artist Lindsay Sekulowicz and Kew’s Science team, with new artworks accompanying and illuminating Kew’s collections from the Amazon rainforest (poison arrows to barkcloth clothing).

Stepping into the great outdoors, visitors will be able to explore 16 diverse works of art by four celebrated artists, positioned outside the galleries and in parts of Kew’s Arboretum, amongst some of its spectacular heritage trees and wide-reaching vistas. These incredible pieces of environmental art will be site-specific, responding to Kew’s evolving landscapes, and mostly made from natural materials. Visitors can weave between these beautiful works, from the calm waves of Nigel Ross’ organic, wooden seating sculptures, to the curling, abstract forms of Julia Clarke’s pieces, the natural figurative sculptures of Woody Fox Willow and the mesmerising fungal art works of Claudia Wegner.

As well as meandering around these beautiful artworks, visitors will be able to take in the rave of autumn colour amongst Kew’s 14,000 trees, balance, hop and skip along Kew’s log trail in the Natural Area while learning about native British trees, meditate on the changing sessions with new yoga sessions and unleash poetic creativity at the Poetry Tree, next to Kew Palace.
Captivating and inspired art works are not the only thing happening in the Gardens this season, visitors can delight in the rustic reds of Kew’s New England maples and the vivid yellows of the Asian Sorbus along the self-guided autumn colour trail. Visitors can also immerse themselves in an array of activities for all ages, from nature yoga and creative writing to tree spotting walks and willow weaving.