GLOW WILD 2021

Client | Kew Gardens, Wakehurst 

The trail is a sensory and immersive treatment exploring the theme, Anthropause – how nature healed when we stood still during lockdown. It highlights nature that we might not see, that we might pass by quickly, leaving a ripple as we humans pass through.

As dusk gently blankets the eastward travelling sun, a hidden world of the walled garden is revealled. An Oasis of light emerges, inviting the audience to pass through this secret space to enjoy the wonders of nature transformed.

As night falls, bioluminescent illuminations playfully dance, evoking the senses , wicker forms of illuminated orb flowers and giant acaulescent plants with beautiful ascending leaves, highlighted with radiant illuminated edges and colourful flowering heads pulse softly amongst the organic bloom.

Discover the hidden details of this beautifully lit oasis through illuminations that are interwoven across the boundaries and within the undergrowth. The foliage flickers and dances with life, playfully emulating hidden glow-worms, fireflies and other bioluminescent insects that flutter throughout the garden and its walls, creating subtle patterns and light trails as they pass between the undergrowth and illuminated beds.

Felix’s response to the brief was to explore how the natural world behaves when we are not looking, and how it responds differently when we are.

A magical, ethereal and highly sensory world has been created, as nature takes back over the formal setting for, rewilding a formal walled garden space. A flutter of light orbs, reminiscent of glow worms flicker off into the distance as visitors brush past, perhaps unaware of the impact their own presence, but which later visitors will observe.

Guardian | Dazzling glow worms, Wakehurst, West Sussex