In Bloom

[qatsi]

We took the train to Oxford yesterday, to visit the Ashmolean's exhibition In Bloom. The theme is vast and therefore the exhibition is highly selective. There's some interesting bits and pieces on discoveries in the New World and the establishment of the Oxford Botanic Garden and Kew. Other interesting artefacts were some flower models, opium pipes and a tea brick. Some of the commentary about being "extractive" (inferredly a euphemism for exploitative) of native peoples was a little wearisome (though obviously not untrue) and the contemporary exhibits did feel that they were used to fill the remainder of the space.