This new exhibition, curated by artist Kedisha Coakley, brings together artworks, objects and specimens from Sheffield’s collection to explore the relationship between Empire and the trade in fruit and flowers.
Fruit and flowers, specifically the pineapple and the tulip, became symbols of wealth and status in Europe during the 1600s and 1700s. They were the inspiration for Dutch Flower paintings, which inspired Coakley’s enduring fascination with still life painting and drawing.
This new exhibition sees Coakley reflect on the violence and legacy of this horticultural pillage while imagining long journeys across land and sea to markets in Europe. Bringing together material across the city's collections alongside her own work, she questions histories that have been erased, or remain untold to ask – what is left behind when these specimens are extracted from their native lands?
Also mapping personal connections between Sheffield and her ancestral home in Jamaica, Coakley reflects on where her work sits in the wider conversation of collecting, visibility, and ownership, and how it facilitates conversations with the rest of Sheffield’s collection.
Coakley’s work in this exhibition has recently been acquired for Sheffield’s collection through the support of the Contemporary Arts Society.
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