BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.4.5//EN TZID:Europe/London X-WR-TIMEZONE:Europe/London BEGIN:VEVENT UID:12060@artinliverpool.com DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260626T100000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260831T170000 DTSTAMP:20260612T063239Z URL:https://www.artinliverpool.com/events/is-this-a-garden-and-the-perfect -flower/ SUMMARY:Open Eye Gallery: Is This a Garden? and The Perfect Flower DESCRIPTION:How do gardens shape the people around them? How do social cond itions\, histories and environments shape the gardens? What is our relati onship to and with plants? Open Eye Gallery is delighted to announce two n ew exhibitions as part of LOOK Photo Biennial 2026: Is This a Garden? an d The Perfect Flower.\n\nIs this a Garden? (Gallery 1 and 2) is curated by Gary Bratchford and Stuart Whipps. For this exhibition\, they’ve bee n looking at the gardens as the backdrop to everyday life. Yan Wang Prest on’s The Perfect Flower project (Gallery 3)\, charts the development o f hydrangeas in the UK\, exploring what a perfect flower is and the journe y to get it.\n\nThe garden is often romanticised in British culture. It is also often the site of emotional and social investment\, a space of co ntestation and a place sanctuary\, but what does the British garden look  like?\n\nIs This A Garden? shows photographs in which gardens appear on ly incidentally: on the edges of images\, behind subjects\, glimpsed throu gh windows\, embedded within everyday life rather than presented as grand statements of horticulture or design. In many of these works\, the garden was never intended to be the primary subject at all. Gardens emerge in f ragments and traces: common birds moving through trees\, fabricated scrubl and\, “gardenettes” in synthetic towns\, artificial flora and fauna ge nerated by AI\, patches of cultivated land pressed against industrial lan dscapes\, the domestic yards and patios. Collectively\, the works ask how gardens shape the people around them\, and equally\, how social condit ions\, histories and environments shape the gardens themselves.\n\nIs This A Garden? also explores works from the Open Eye Gallery Archive\, inclu ding works from the 1984 exhibition Parks and Gardens. This selection f ocuses on allotments\, our relationship to and with plants\, as well as so cial practices of gifting flowers.\n\nGary Bratchford and Stuart Whipps\, curators\, said: “What interested us was not photographs of gardens so much as photographs where gardens are present in the background of everyda y life. Bringing these works together has allowed us to think about garden s as social spaces shaped by history\, class\, labour\, and personal exper ience\, and we hope audiences find new ways of looking at these often-over looked environments.”\n\nIs This A Garden? is developed in partnership with The centre for research in Art &\; Design at Birmingham City Univ ersity.\n\nGallery 3 shows Yan Wang Preston’s The Perfect Flower proj ect\, including photographs\, a projection and a short film. This project charts the development of hydrangeas in the UK\, starting from a reproduct ion of the oldest hydrangea specimen in Britain. Developed through close observation of the RHS Hydrangea paniculata trials\, the work reflects on how flowers are classified\, valued and perfected. The work also reflects on the cultural and historical implications embedded in horticulture\, inc luding colonial histories that shaped the introduction and commercialisati on of plants.\n\n“What is a perfect flower? How do we go about getting t hem? Why such an impulse?” – Yan Wang Preston.\n\nThe Perfect Flower  is part of The OFFSHOOT Artist in Residence programme\, which is a collabo ration between University of Salford Art Collection\, RHS Garden Bridgewat er and Open Eye Gallery\,  generously supported using public funding by t he National Lottery through Arts Council England. ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.artinliverpool.com/wp-content/upload s/2026/06/Daniel-Meadows-The-Mullings-family-Penrith-Avenue-Sale-Cheshire- 1974-1.jpg CATEGORIES:Exhibitions LOCATION:Open Eye Gallery\, Mann Island\, Liverpool Waterfront\, Liverpool\ , L3 1BP\, Liverpool\, United Kingdom GEO:53.40423;-2.994412 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Mann Island\, Liverpool Wat erfront\, Liverpool\, L3 1BP\, Liverpool\, United Kingdom;X-APPLE-RADIUS=1 00;X-TITLE=Open Eye Gallery:geo:53.40423,-2.994412 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20260329T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR