2014 - 2015

The Ghost in the Machine
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Catarina Brito (1st Year)

The Royal Horticultural Society






The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) was founded in 1804 with the intention of being a repository of all knowledge surrounding horticulture, and to develop and disseminate this discipline throughout the country. During the British Empire, horticulture was essential to understand the world and to communicate British achievements. The contemporary relevance and purpose of horticulture is ambiguous and ill-defined, as reflected by the current identity of the RHS as a bourgeois gardening club.

If horticulture is “the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation”, how could this practice and its institutional organism be reimagined to suit current preoccupations?

My project is about rethinking the structure and scope of the RHS, as an institution of the monarchy, and also about exploring and questioning horticulture within new limits, especially in the context of London. I’ve created is a series of centres that act as silos in the city, that will engage with a new understanding and agency of horticulture, giving the Royal Horticultural Society a renewed relevance.

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Find out more aboutCatarina’s topic with the research article ->


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