Botanical Art Worldwide and in UK (excluding Scotland)

This post covers:

• Basic Principles:
  • Botanical Art Worldwide Central Guidelines 
  • Country Guidelines
• Participating countries to date
• Botanical Art Worldwide in the UK 

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Botanical Art Worldwide - Basic Principles

The second Botanical Art Worldwide Project will focus on and celebrate biodiversity in the crops that have been closely associated with the human species over thousands of years. The theme is designed to draw attention to the vast variety of food and useful plants available, in contrast with the relatively few varieties currently used in mass cultivation. Plants eligible for inclusion are those cultivated for food, textiles, building, energy, and medicine

BAW Central Guidelines

The theme of the Exhibition in 2025 is "Crop Diversity".

Eligible subject matter covers:

• HERITAGE CROPS: Crops that are not used in modern, large scale monocultural agriculture. Crops chosen should have been in cultivation for a minimum of 50 years (in the country in which they're being portrayed).
• CROP WILD RELATIVES: Wild species that can be hybridized with cultivated crops to impart a new characteristic to the cultivated crop, or that are foraged wild plants.
• ANCIENT CROPS: Those that have been cultivated for hundreds or thousands of years in the same form.

Every country needs to comply with the central guidelines which will be produced by the Steering Committee for Botanical Art Worldwide. 

These central guidelines has not yet been fully finalised - and hence not yet formalised and published . However these are coming soon and will be prominent on the Botanical Art Worldwide website when available.

BAW International Exhibition

The International Exhibition is going to be digital/virtual and will be available online to everybody around the world and remain on view during May 2025.

(To be honest, I've always thought that the point of going digital is you can remain online - as indeed all the historical art does in the various collections / major projects relating to  past botanical artwork and illustrations. Maybe it's an issue of expense? There again YouTube is forever if you so choose.)

Overall Goals

Artists around the world are working on this project to:

• - build partnerships between artists, institutions, scientists, and the public.

• - raise awareness of the worldwide renaissance in botanical art.
• - acknowledge and build upon the increasing ease of communication and connection between botanical artists wherever they might live and work.
• - increase appreciation and understanding of crop diversity around the world.
• - engage in a project to document some of the world’s diverse crop plants.

Components of the BAW Project 2025

BASIC PRINCIPLES of how it will work in every country - as agreed by the Steering Committee.

• ​Exhibitions of original botanical artworks juried from submissions of artists in each participating country.
• All will depict crop plants grown in each country to focus on worldwide crop diversity (i.e. not plants you can buy in the country; ONLY crops which grow in the country).
• Digital presentations will be shown featuring artworks appearing in all other countries’ exhibitions.
• Each country will set its own opening and closing dates for exhibitions and other events
  • ​Lectures, webinars, workshops, demonstrations, and other public programming will be presented by organizers and host venues
  • during the exhibitions’ opening times.
• Exhibition venues around the world will all hold special events on May 18, 2025 - a Worldwide Day of Botanical Art following the sun from venue to venue.

Participating Countries

If your botanical art organisation / botanical garden / museum wants to participate - and your country is not already participating (see list below) - you should

• either go to this page and find out who to contact
• or email [email protected] for more information.

The following are all the participating countries - to date. I expect more will join.

• Australia
• Belgium
• Brazil
• Canada
• Chile
• Colombia
• France
• Germany
• Indonesia
• Ireland
• Italy
• Japan
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Philippines
• Republic of Korea
• Russia
• Scotland
• Singapore
• South Africa
• Taiwan
• Thailand
• Turkey
• Ukraine
• United Kingdom
• USA

You can see everything that happened around the world on one page on my website - see ARCHIVE: World Wide Exhibition of Botanical Art 2018. It includes a number of images and videos.

I will be setting up a similar page for Botanical Art Worldwide 2025 on this website very soon.


Country Guidelines / Exhibition

Each participating country has a Steering Committee who are organising the country contribution to the International Exhibition.

• One member of that Steering Committee is on the International Steering Committee
• Every country is going to choose 40 works for their digital contribution to the digital open INTERNATIONAL exhibition.

Within their own country,  each country can choose to have as many artworks as they like in a physical exhibition in the country - depending on the space available.

Each country can organise additional lectures, webinars, workshops, demonstrations, and other public programming - during the dates agreed for the opening and closing of the exhibition in that country.

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Botanical Art Worldwide in the UK (England, Wales and Northern Ireland)

​In the UK the contribution to Botanical Art Worldwide is SPLIT - as it was in 2018 - between:

• UK excluding Scotland (i.e. England, Wales and Northern Ireland) These three countries are being organised by a consortium of botanical art societies / groups and "hosted" by the Association of Botanical Artists (more details below)
• Scotland - Scotland's exhibition will be run by the Scottish Society of Botanical Artists (SSBA) - but there is nothing up on either the BAW or the SSBA websites as yet. I'm guessing they'll work "Scotia" into the title somehow as they did in 2018

Below you can find out more about

• Botanical Art Worldwide Guidelines for UK (England, Wales and Northern Ireland)
• How to Register
• Support for your entry
• The Exhibition
• A Webinar Talk about the project
  

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