Medicinal Garden – early artistic inspirations

 

During recent musings on the hairy structure of the sage plant I was reminded of some early experiments I completed with transparent piped silicone.

This led me to doing another few spiky experiments (see images above).

I also decided to add some spiky silicone ‘hairs’ to an unrelated experimental piece that I have been working on.  (See the images below).

There were some interesting results from these tests so this is something that I will definitely look into further in the development of this piece.

The other thought that came to me while thinking of the work to be placed in or near the medicinal garden is that I would like to incorporate a more tactile element into this work. I hope that the piece itself or a sample of it will be accessible to the public to touch.

More artistic musing on the sage plant to follow.

The Physic/ medicinal garden

Over the next four days I will add one post per day about our ongoing interest in the Physic garden in Trinity College Dublin.

For this first post I would like to give a brief background to the garden itself. Tomorrow I will highlight the sage plant. The following post will illustrate some of the SEM images we have already taken of the sage plant. Finally I will round up by talking about our dilemma in choosing which plant to focus are research on.

So to start off with Trinity College initiated a physic garden on the main college campus in 1687 to provide plant material to support the teaching of medicine. By 1173 this garden had become derelict, and was partly used to dump offal from the Anatomy Department.

In 2011 to mark 300 years of Botany, Chemistry and Medicine at Trinity College, Dr Henery Oakeley, Garden Fellow at the Royal College of Physicians of London opened the new Physic (medicinal) garden on the main campus of Trinity College. The garden features sixty plants of medicinal interest and aims to highlight where some medicines come from.

Although some plants are still used in herbal medicines, modern drug development relies more on finding novel chemical of medicinal value in plants and then reproducing this chemical through biosynthesis techniques on an industrial scale to produce the relevant drug. Botany is no longer taught to medical students however the links to drug discovery and development are still as strong as ever. The Physic garden showcases medicinal plants of ancient and contemporary medicinal relevance and regonises the linkage between the disciplines of Botany, Chemistry and Medicine. It is situated between the Hamilton and Llyod Building at the East end of the campus. (excerpt taken from – Trinity News and Events – 21^st April 2011)

Sampling – the sage plant

David Hackett cutting samples from the sage plant in the Medicinal garden outside the Science Gallery.

Although the sage plant is obviously not a tree we were keen to include it as it will add extra sensory and healing aspects to the project.  

We also expect to get some wonderful images of the hairy surface of the sage leaves.  

 

Medicinal Garden

Medicinal garden – outside the Science Gallery.

We will take some samples of a few of the herbs here and choose based on the resultant imagery. We would like to include a herb that incorporates the sense of smell or taste to further enhance the self guided walk.

Of note: The Science Gallery have a pamphlet pertaining to this herb garden.

Image: Olivia Hassett