Gardens can be places of transformation and liberation. This display reflects upon the use of the garden in visual culture as a vehicle for utopian thought and emblem for an ideal society. As a place where physical and aesthetic labour converge - and where pleasure and profit are found in equal measure - the garden has held great symbolic weight within the rhetoric of socialism since the late 19th century. In the work of William Morris and Walter Crane the enclosed garden is used repeatedly, assisting the creation of a rich visual language in support of their ardent socialist agenda. Many modern and contemporary artists have since been drawn to the subject of the garden, providing them with conceptual means to express their political ideologies in opposition of capitalist pursuits, and to envision a utopian world.

Curated by Samantha Manton with support from the Contemporary Art Society Starting Point Fellowship

David Mabb exhibited Construct 1, Morris, Trellis / Stepanova, Optical 2003. 23”x23”. Collection Whitworth Art Gallery.

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/26786