british installation artist rebecca louise law presents ‘community’ — an inverted garden comprised of both dried and fresh plant materials suspended from the ceiling. the installation transforms the toledo museum of art’s canaday gallery into an immersive visitor experience. the story of toledo is important to the artist, who used a range of plants and flowers native to northwest ohio for ‘community’. by encouraging volunteers to string garlands of flowers together, law intends for participants to take ownership in the installation.

rebecca louise law community toledo
all images courtesy of rebecca louise law

 

 

with assistance from the toledo museum of art, rebecca louise law has sourced thousands of plants and flowers native to the region for the project. the installation required 1,800 volunteer hours of assistance from community members to assemble garlands of the flowers and plant materials. as a proponent of sustainability, law repurposed flowers that were previously featured in her other installations from around the world.

rebecca louise law community toledo

 

 

the TMA groundskeeping team has collected samples of plants from the museum’s 40-acre campus to be featured in the installation. these include pressed pear and oak leaves, fruit of the american sweetgum, fertile fronds of the ostrich fern, sawtooth oak acorn caps, honey locust bean pods, spruce cones, pine cones, seed heads from miscanthus grasses, pampas and northern sea oats, and annabelle hydrangea heads. entwined within ‘community’ is law’s entire private collection of dried floral material, including more than 10 years of past installations combined with her own collection of european specimens.

rebecca louise law community toledo

 

 

the exhibition ‘rebecca louise law: community’ will be showing at the toledo museum of art’s canaday gallery from june 16, 2018 — jan. 13, 2019.

rebecca louise law community toledo rebecca louise law community toledo