Imaginary Worlds returns
this spring with a menagerie of all-new giant living plant
sculptures sure to bring a smile as they take visitors on a fantasy
journey throughout the Atlanta Botanical Garden, both at the
Midtown and Gainesville locations.
Back by popular demand, the exhibition,
presented May 5 – October 28, recaptures the magic of the original
blockbuster show from 2013 and 2014 with larger-than-life,
topiary-like whimsical sculptures – only this time they’re even
bigger.
“Imaginary Worlds was just so incredibly popular with our guests
that we just had to bring it back – but with an all-new twist,”
said Mary Pat Matheson, the Garden’s President & CEO.
Imaginary Worlds: Once Upon a Time will wow visitors with a storybook-themed world
of sculptures, both indoors and out – most custom made for the
Garden by the exhibition’s creators, International Mosaiculture of
Montreal®. The nonprofit group has staged wildly successful
exhibitions of its work around the world, and five years ago the
Garden presented the first major exhibition of its kind in the
United States
This time, the sculptures – steel forms
covered in a mossy fabric, stuffed with soil and planted with
thousands of meticulously groomed plants – will be staged in 14
installations. At the Midtown garden, look for a giant Phoenix
looming over the Alston Overlook, a mermaid lounging beside Howell
Fountain, a massive dragon and sleeping princess near the Great
Lawn, a woolly mammoth and a prancing peacock inside the Fuqua
Orchid Center, and three towering camels lumbering through the
Skyline Garden, to name a few. At the Gainesville garden, the
landscape will be adorned with a variety of characters, including a
friendly ogre, panda bears and frolicking frogs.
This all-new cast of characters joins the
Garden's permanent sculptures, Earth Goddess and Shaggy Dog, which
are legacies from the original exhibition.
“In addition to featuring all of the new
characters, this exhibition is unique in that the sculptures are
extremely large, much more so than the ones in the original show,
and our own team of horticulturists will be planting them,”
Matheson said.
The process for creating the sculptures
takes nearly half a year. It began last fall when conceptual
drawings for the pieces were developed in Montreal, metal frames
were fabricated, and plant palettes were chosen. The empty frames
were shipped to Atlanta in January, and the Garden’s
horticulturists began covering them with a mesh fabric and stuffing
them with soil. Then the planting commenced – inserting more than 200,000
plants, primarily annuals, one by one. Because Atlanta’s winters
are too cold for the annuals to survive, the sculptures were built
in sections that were planted inside a greenhouse just outside the
city, then trucked to the Garden in spring for assembling on site.
Intricate irrigation systems beneath the surface of the sculptures
allow the plants to grow – and the creatures to flourish – in
Atlanta’s summer heat.
Throughout the exhibition, guests will be
able to also enjoy the sculptures in a whole new light at night –
illuminated on Thursday evenings during Cocktails in the
Garden.
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