The Birds and the Bees

A Botanical Perspective

01/04/2014 Special exhibitions
The Gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle
From naughty and playful to mysterious, even mystic: The 2014 special exhibition clarifies how plants “do it” and what expectations we humans place on them.
The exhibition encompasses two different levels: upstairs covers how flowers seduce, deceive and work together as a team with fauna. Plants are surprisingly sophisticated when it comes to deploying colors, aromas and shapes in order to perpetuate their species. Botanists drew parallels to human sexuality long ago; these add some spice to the exhibition and will undoubtedly elicit a smile from visitors. The first-floor presentation is bright and colorful, leading exhibition-goers on a journey into the world of flowers, interwoven with the life cycle of plants. The lower level carries visitors into mysterious and mystical realms: sometimes the black walls disclose the secret powers of plants; other times a veil of mysticism, a blurring, remains. Plants have a strong impact on the love lives of human beings: lust and longing, love and rejection – it seems there’s an herb grown for every purpose. But what truth is there in it? What is born merely from what we wish were true? And what merely stems from well-maintained everyday culture?