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The
exhibition of giant topiary-like plant sculptures, presented May 11
– October 27 at both the Midtown and Gainesville gardens, is back
by popular demand after last summer’s blockbuster show, Imaginary
Worlds: Once Upon a Time.
Featured are
16 installations of 38 individual sculptures, and many of last
year’s crowd-favorites will make a comeback – some donning
coats of different plant palettes than before.
“The focus
of the new show clearly is Alice and many in the cast of characters
from Lewis Carroll’s classic novel,” Garden President & CEO
Mary Pat Matheson said. “But what will no doubt blow visitors away
is the sheer size of these sculptures.”
A giant
White Rabbit, for example, towers at more than 27 feet tall as it
floats inside an upside-down umbrella in the Skyline Garden pond. That tops even the Garden’s resident Earth Goddess sculpture, at 22
feet. On the Skyline lawn is an expansive chess board bordered by
10 heart “trees” each more than 12 feet tall, with a giant Cheshire
Cat poised nearby. Alice herself is on hand – just elsewhere in the
Garden. Who’s up for the challenge of finding her?
Making
encore appearances from 2018 are the Dragon, Mammoth, Mermaid,
Phoenix, Camels, and Pegasus – many sporting all-new plantings. At
the Gainesville Garden, look for a return of the friendly Ogre
along with Rip van Winkle, Bears, and Frogs.
The Garden first introduced guests to Imaginary Worlds
in 2013 when it presented the United States’ first major exhibition
of mosaiculture – the horticultural art of creating giant
sculptures using steel forms covered in thousands of living plants. Mosaiculture is the creative genius of International Mosaiculture
of Montreal®, a nonprofit group that has staged wildly successful
exhibitions of its work around the world.
The
organization hosted its first major exhibition and competition in
Montreal in 2000 to celebrate the Millennium and proved an instant
hit with 1 million visitors. Since then, it has extended its reach
by participating in major exhibitions in Shanghai, Beijing, and
Hamamatsu, Japan.
In
Atlanta, visitors may explore the new exhibition during evening
hours every Thursday at Cocktails in the Garden, when the
sculptures are dramatically lit.
Imaginary
Worlds is presented with support from The Home Depot
Foundation.
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