Music, drag, colour, garish looks, enchanting queer people – just my regular Saturday night. But this was London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, during its delightful event, a party for the celebration of diversity in plants and fungi.
Among the art and the performances, I loved drag king Beau Jangles singing 40s-inspired songs, DJ Auntie Maureen (pictured above), and Jeffrey Gibson’s “House of Spirits”, a radiant, large-scale artwork, suspended in Kew’s Temperate House.
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But my highlight was strolling around taking in facts on bisexual flowers and asexual trees, while enjoying the fun, inclusive vibe. Humans can learn a lot from nature’s diversity.
Earlier in the day, I saw at London’s Barbican, an exhibition exploring the relationship between gender and ecology. It included some of my favourite photographers, such as Fay Godwin, Sim Chi Yin and Poulomi Basu. More sobering than Kew’s offering, but equally vital.
Tim Boddy
Picture editor
London, UK
