Join Dr Michele Rodda, curator of Flower Obsession: Plant Collecting in East Asia, 1600s–1900s in the second session of The Curator Talks series. This talk will focus on kihin, the Japanese term for plants which were sought after for their unusual characteristics such as variegated leaves. Kihin became very popular in the Edo period (1603–1868), leading to the production of numerous illustrated books, targeted mainly at collectors. These include large encyclopaedic works, cultivation manuals as well as books specialised on single species such as Rohdea japonica or Ipomoea nil.

This session has limited slots and will be conducted on Zoom. Register your interest here and slots will be allocated based on availability. 

Date: 6 August 2022

Time: 6pm – 7pm

The Curator Talks is three-part series by Dr Michele Rodda, curator of Flower Obsession: Plant Collecting in East Asia, 1600s–1900s who will share about the curatorial process and explore a wide range of topics on botanical art in East Asia. Keep a look out for the upcoming sessions!

Notes on the exhibition
This is the first exhibition at the Botanical Art Gallery to feature artworks from two important overseas institutions: Higashiyama Botanical Gardens and the private Soukaen Bunko (Nagoya, Japan).

The exhibition is divided between two rooms. The displays in the first room showcase popular flowers that have been, for centuries, ubiquitous in the arts and plant collecting traditions of East Asia and beyond. The drawings and prints in these showcases are an invaluable archive of the East Asian love of flowers, and are a permanent record of plants that have been cultivated, selected, exhibited and traded.

The second room reflects the boom of plant exhibitions and competitions that became popular in Japan at the same time as the development of botany and plant illustration in the early to mid-1800s. Numerous books were produced as a permanent record of the best plants that were being displayed. These plants often had unusual form or variegated leaves which were particularly coveted among Japanese collectors.

About the speaker
Dr Michele Rodda is a taxonomist at the Singapore Botanic Gardens, who specialises in the Apocynaceae (the frangipani family) of Southeast Asia and neighbouring regions. He has also been studying the historic collections of botanical art in the Garden’s archives. He is the curator of exhibitions at the Garden’s Botanical Art Gallery, and he has written the book Tropical Plants in Focus: Botanical Illustration at the Singapore Botanic Gardens (2021).

For more information about the exhibition, visit Flower Obsession: Plant Collecting in East Asia, 1600s–1900s.

Tenkō zufu [Illustrated book of lilies], 1866, manuscript. Takemoto Sekitei. COLLECTION OF SOUKAEN BUNKO