Selby Gardens Extends Seeing the Invisible at Historic Spanish Point Campus

Art and culture

Pictured: El Anatsui, AG + BA (AR), 2014, 2021. Photo courtesy of Selby Gardens.

The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens will host a second year of the cutting-edge contemporary art exhibition, Seeing the Invisible, at its Historic Spanish Point Campus. The most ambitious and extensive exhibition to date of contemporary artworks created using augmented reality (AR) technology opened last year at 12 botanical gardens around the world. Selby Gardens is one of four inaugural locations that will host the show for a second year through September 2023. Six new garden and museum sites will join the global exhibition in October. Seeing the Invisible features works by more than a dozen internationally recognized artists, including Ai Weiwei from China, El Anatsui from Ghana, Isaac Julien CBE RA from the UK and Sarah Meyohas from the United States. At Selby Gardens’ Historic Spanish Point Campus, the show’s 13 AR works will be installed in carefully curated locations throughout the 30-acre conservation area. Visitors engage with the art through an app that can be downloaded onto a smartphone or tablet. An updated version of the app for Season 2 will be available in October. Seeing the Invisible is the first exhibition of its kind to be developed in collaboration between botanical gardens around the world. The same commissioned works will be placed in the outdoor environments of the participating institutions, creating parallels and contrasts between them. The AR nature of the exhibition has enabled the creation of expansive, immersive works that engage with existing features of the natural landscape and push the boundaries of what is possible with physical artworks. The collaboration also enables the partner gardens and museums to bring leading contemporary art to their communities in a sustainable way. The exhibition was initiated by Hannah Rendell, executive director of the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens, and Candida Gertler, co-founder of the London-based Outset Contemporary Art Fund, with support from the Jerusalem Foundation’s Innovation Fund. Seeing the Invisible is co-curated by Hadas Maor and Tal Michael Haring. For the Selby Gardens installation, Vice President Visitor Engagement and Chief Museum Curator Dr. David Berry the local curatorial team. The show here is sponsored by the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.

Pictured: El Anatsui, AG + BA (AR), 2014, 2021. Photo courtesy of Selby Gardens.