Plant Life: The Nature of Design

From leather grown from fungi to fibreboard made from hemp, Plant Life: The Nature of Design explores humanity’s evolving relationship with the plant world through design, from ancestral craft knowledge and devotional making, through industrial exploitation and the rupture of the petrochemical century, to the designers building a regenerative material future today.

Plants have always been our most essential material collaborators – the source of shelter, sustenance, utility, beauty and meaning across every culture and era of human making. This exhibition traces that relationship from its deepest roots to its speculative futures, presenting furniture, architecture, decorative arts, craft, photography and film drawn from the NGV Collection alongside new commissions, recent acquisitions and key international loans.