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In Production
Plant Cultures
Plant Cultures is a website that gathers together a wide range of information about plants from South Asia.
Link: www.plantcultures.org.uk
What's the real story behind the South Asian plants that have transformed British life? Plant Cultures finds out what curry leaf, henna and tea mean to us.
- Plant Cultures received more than one million visitors in the first eighteen months, inspiring over 20,000 new visitors to gardens and museums in London, Leicester, Liverpool and Bradford
- Inspired a week's worth of dedicated programming on BBC Asian Network
- "I think this is a fantastic project" - Gurdinder Chadha, Director, Bend It Like Beckham
Plant Cultures used the plants of a particular region as an entry point to many aspects of that region's culture – food, superstition, religion, fashion, cosmetics and art – as well as furthering the public understanding of science.
The project draws on an innovative partnership of museums, libraries, botanical experts and local communities to collate and present information about the significance of plants in all aspects of our lives.
The lead project partner is the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, with regional partners, The Museum of London, Leicester City Museums and National Museums Liverpool. The website is aimed at a broad spectrum of users and is rich in learning opportunities and resources.
At least 1500 images of rare prints, paintings and artefacts, many never exhibited before, are now available on the website. These come from the rich collections of the Kew Library, the Asia Pacific & Africa Collections of the British Library, the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine and the India and South East Asia Collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Partner museums ran events and workshops to introduce new audiences to the Plant Cultures project.
Please Select
Indigo (Indigofera tinctoria L.), an important dye plant.
Credit: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Indian workers at a loom. Engraving, 19th century.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London
Fields and crops in India. Gouache, 18th century.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London