An exhibition called ‘Curating Nature’ organised by final year students at Aberystwyth University’s School of Art continues until 13 September.

The opening hours to view the exhibition are 10am to 5pm and entry is free.

Artworks have been made using gardening as a lens through which our changing relationship with nature can be examined.

Most of the artworks from the School of Art collections in the exhibition are from the stores and have not yet been exhibited in our galleries.

These shed light on the ways in which class, gender, wealth, urbanism, and the climate crisis have affected gardening from the 18th century to today.

Audiences are taken on a journey involving representations of the picturesque Hafod Estate to the quintessential ‘English garden,’ through abstract depictions of gardens by Ceri Richards and Bert Isaac.

Alongside this, each student was tasked with curating their own drawer in a cabinet from the Old College’s original museum. Some of these drawers include artworks or displays made by students, and others include interactive activities that are available to take home. These include seed swaps, instructions on how to make sun prints or seed paper, and other activities to give audiences the chance to further engage with the topic long after the exhibition is over.

‘Curating Nature’ invites you to consider the symbolism of gardens as spaces that represent humanity’s ability to nurture and care, but also to dominate and control. In the context of an environmental emergency and a post-pandemic world, our relationship to gardens reveals something deeper about human consciousness; namely, how we confront our unavoidable interdependence with the world around us.

The School of Art is in The Edward Davies building, a Grade II listed building of special architectural interest, but it was for many years a state-of-the-art laboratory, one of the earliest purpose-built chemical laboratories in the country and the first in Wales.

The School of Art Museum and Galleries is a fully accredited museum with an extensive teaching and research collection of fine and decorative art that spans from the 15th century to contemporary.