Unearthed: the power of gardening

 Not 100% sure how to render the punctuation in this exhibit at the British Library but since today is the start of a two-day conference on gardens and empires, it seems timely to recount my visit to Unearthed. 

I was quite keen to see what might be included, as I have been staying away from indoor spaces since 2020, I have been starved of visual stimulation and gardening has become quite the focus for my attention since then. I attended a relaxed viewing and was indeed the first to arrive for my slot, so had the space to myself for quite some time. 

Alas, relaxed meant no open sounds, so I was unable to fully appreciate some of the installation work on show. I actually prefer sounds to pictures, so that was a shame. But there were some videos that had both captions and headphone-type devices to use so there is some good choice. 

 The selection of items puzzled me. It was so farflung, everything from Gertrude Jekyll's boots to pamphlets and some historical explanations. Presentation included the usual glass cases, plus a confusing spinning globe, some attempts at sheds and a digital screen allowing one to design one's own garden. Alas for me, you can only take away the result with a smartphone that reads QR codes. Oh, well. 

The most interesting bits to me were the mentions of guerrilla groups and squat communities connected to gardening--gardening activism, if you will. That seems to best illustrate the notion of claiming power, as opposed to being the recipient of it.

I felt coming away from the exhibit curiously underwhelmed, as if having so many gardening topics actually lessened the impact of the whole. 

What I thought might be fascinating would be to explore more fully topics like gardening and community or gardening and empire, hence my interest in the above conference, which I have only just found and so will not be attending. 

 But I am intrigued to look more into some of the groups I discovered by visiting, such as  Coco Collective, as well as learning more about land enclosures and The Diggers. 

 Unearthed: the power of gardening is at the British Library in London until 10 August. 

Various local libraries have related exhibits, such as this one at Warwickshire Library.  

The Venus Effect

 This Danish film directed and co-written by Anna Emma Haudal is billed as a lesbian rom com. Well. Not so sure about that.... 

 Taciturn Liv works at her parents garden centre and has a meet cute with hippy wild child Andrea when the latter's car breaks down and she bursts in wearing a pussy costume. 

 The first 15-20 minutes are quite intriguing as the writers weave in notions of growth and natural elements: trees, bees, plants making music. I was quite hopeful. 

 But once the two women strike up a relationship, the film falls flat. There is no sense of why these two disparate characters would get together, much less Liv cheat on her boyfriend. There are several set pieces in which characters sit down to uncomfortable meals that could be hilarious farce. But not here. It's just lots of awkwardness. It put me in mind of some of Joanna Hogg's work, with her tense silences and people putting on brave faces and being polite. I have never warmed to Hogg's work, and this felt equally stilted. Plus the two leads have no chemistry. 

The last 20 minutes pick up considerably, as we finally get a satisfying conflagration (over Christmas dinner), and Liv finally expresses some deeply held emotions after 80 minutes of being frustratingly passive. Over goes the tree. No cha cha heels, though. So, not so much rom com as low key drama.  

One thing I noticed was that the references to plant life also disappeared in the middle part and the director throws in very oddly paced cut aways to trees. A shame she didn't develop that strand as relationship and plant growth are a good match. 

Trailer

THE VENUS EFFECT is available on streaming services from 2 June.