Hands-on multisensory indoor garden by artist Helen Brook, co-produced with the RHS, with a rare Elizabeth Blackwell herbal.
Where Magic Grows is a hands-on gallery space at the Thackray Museum of Medicine on Beckett Street, and it's open through to 3 January. It's a multisensory indoor garden that invites visitors of all ages to rediscover the healing power of the outdoors through touch, scent and playful discovery, set in a mossy, tactile landscape filled with oversized plants and hidden networks beneath the soil. It's the kind of thing you don't just look at from a distance — you're meant to get stuck in.
There's a rare, hand-coloured two-volume first edition of A Curious Herbal by Elizabeth Blackwell on display. It's a botanical work from more than 250 years ago that helped people learn about the healing power of nature, and it's now recognised as both a major achievement in botanical illustration and a powerful example of women's contribution to medical knowledge in a previously male-dominated field. Seeing it alongside the tactile garden gives a nice bridge between the historical record and the physical experience.
The space was co-produced with five young curators and created by artist Helen Brook in partnership with the RHS, the UK's gardening charity. That collaboration comes through in the way it blends art and horticulture, and the young curators' involvement means it's built with a younger audience in mind, though it's open to all ages. It's a good one to bring kids along to, as the whole point is to explore by touch and smell rather than just reading placards.
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You'll find it at the Thackray Museum of Medicine, 141 Beckett Street, Leeds, LS9 7LN, and it runs until 3 January.
