“Taking its title from Red Naomi, one of the most popular roses exported from Kenya to Europe, and celebrated for its “high petal count, improved longevity and resistance to transport”, Radek Brousil’s project deals with the symbolism and impact of our fondness for flowers. It circulates freely around Glasgow botanical gardens glasshouse and its marble sculpture of a ‘Nubian Slave’, touching on the Czech textile company VEBA and its textile designs for the African market, Naomi Campbell and the story of a pouch with “dirty looking” stones, and water as a connecting element and asset for both transport and production, the exhibition is interested in shifts, twists, appropriations, misinterpretation and the absence of the “natural” in current frames of cultural and economical exchange. Its aim is not just academic or critical: with humour and irony it allows certain elements to appear in new contexts, parallels and configurations, understanding cultural symbols as loose containers for adjustation and productive hybridity.”

– Michal Novotný

Brousil will be showing new work developed during visits to Glasgow and his research into the floral industry in Africa and its exports to Europe for commercial reasons. The exhibition is an installation and film with an accompanying text by Francis Mckee, 

Programmed alongside ‘What is Life’, an exhibition by Markéta Othováand Aleksandra Vajd at Street Level Photoworks, which form part of the Czech Season Scotland supported by the Czech Centre London.

Intersectional Events:

Walking Tour of Glasgow Botanical Garden with Marenka Thompson-Odlum: 28.10.17 – 12:00-14:00 

Talk by Lyndsay Mann with Tiffany Boyle in GSA’s Reid Auditorium: 03.11.17 – 19:00-20:30

Conversation with Jennifer Martin in 16 Nicholson Street: 04.11.17 – 15:00-17:00

Curators: Michal Novotný, Isabella Shields, and Tine Bek.

Documentation: Tine Bek.