The Curiosity Project at the Garden Museum

‘Elias Ashmole acquired his collection from two gardeners: John Tradescant, father and son. The Tradescants were no ordinary gardeners; they were employed by the wealthy Earl of Salisbury. The Tradescants voyaged overseas, travelling the known world and shipping back new and exotic plant specimens for the Earl’s gardens. In the course of their travels they also acquired a remarkable collection of curiosities that included botanical, geological and zoological items as well as man-made objects. The Tradescant’s themselves established a museum in Lambeth, South London, known as ‘The Ark’ to house their collection in 1634. A visitor to this original museum commented that ‘a man might in one day behold…more curiosities than he should see if he spent all his life in travel.’ The collection contained treasures such as the mantle of Pocahontas’s father (Powhatan) and the stuffed body of the last dodo ever seen in Europe.’ the Ashmolean Museum.

THE CURIOSITY PROJECT is a collaboration between The Garden Museum and Morley College, inspired by the newly reconstructed TRADESCANT ARK at The Garden Museum. Morley College Advanced Textiles Group and staff have explored the astonishing diversity of the recorded and surviving 17th century collection of natural, cultural, mythical and curious objects amassed by the Tradescant family at their Lambeth home. Hybrids of animal, vegetable and mineral form an exhibition of works ranging from fossils to folklore, and the microscopic to monstrous.

The collection eventually formed the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. A selection has been lent to the Garden Museum where the Tradescant family have a famously elaborate tomb, and Elias Ashmole is also buried.

The exhibition of the Advanced Textile Group’s work is showing at the Garden Museum Magazine Space and Community Wall from the 23 Sept to the 15 Oct 2017, with Morley Staff work showing concurrently in the Morley College Foyer.