Back to Earth at Serpentine Galleries

For her contribution to Back to Earth, artist Dr Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg has created an edition of Pollinator Pathmaker which has been planted near to Serpentine in Kensington Gardens. The work is laid out in eleven beds along the length of North Flower Walk, which is located next to Lancaster Gate. 

Pollinator Pathmaker is an ongoing project for Ginsberg, who has worked with horticulturalists at the Eden Project, Cornwall and pollinator experts to curate a database of plants that suit different pollinators and are suitable for specific locations. Once the conditions of the Kensington Gardens site were agreed, Ginsberg’s custom-built computer algorithm created a planting design to support the maximum number of pollinator species possible. The patterns that emerged offer pollinators including bees, moths, ants, wasps and beetles habitat, space to forage as they appear over the year, and arrangements which suit different pollinating styles. In addition to the garden itself, Pollinator Pathmaker also exists as a new website through which anyone can ask the same algorithm to create their own garden design. To find out how you can support declining pollinator populations in the UK by planting an artwork for insects, visit pollinator.art.

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As part of Back to Earth, spatial practitioners Cooking Sections are continuing their ongoing research project, CLIMAVORE. Working with scientists, chefs, farmers, policymakers and practitioners from several other disciplines, CLIMAVORE proposes an adaptive, regenerative form of eating – a shift in the economy and ecology of how we consume, interact with and produce food, towards environmental well-being in the climate emergency. Restaurants in museums across the UK are Becoming CLIMAVORE, removing farmed salmon from their menus and replacing it with ingredients that improve water quality and cultivate marine habitats like seaweeds, sea vegetables and bivalves. The cafe at Serpentine has introduced a CLIMAVORE menu, which includes seaweed soda bread, rope grown mussels and an agar panna cotta. By Becoming CLIMAVORE, cultural institutions worldwide can be at the forefront of a collective effort to re-imagine existing food justice models and create new ones in the face of the climate emergency.

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Back to Earth is organised by: Sarah Hamed, Assistant Curator Exhibitions; Rebecca Lewin, Curator, Exhibitions and Design; Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director; Lucia Pietroiusti, Founder, General Ecology; Kostas Stasinopoulos, Associate Curator, Live Programmes.

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