Tuesday 29th January 2013 (AM)

Morning trip to The Botanical Gardens of Wales

We all had our first trip to the Botanical Gardens today to see where our exhibition is going to be held. We thought we were going to be hanging it in they're gallery but they had moved us into the Apothecary's Hall, a late 19th century pharmacy which seems to be more relevant as it is all about 'Medicines in May'. 

Bruce, who organises the medicines in May every year gave us a quick tour around the gardens so we could see the types of plants they have and to understand what they do at the gardens. 

When we got to the apothecary's hall we were all completely astounded by they're collection of medicine bottles, pharmaceutical tools and equipment. There are 3 rooms that all follow through to each other, the first room gives us an insight into medicines around the world, the second is all the medicines, poisons, pills and herbs that were used, and the third was more information about the herbs. 

Sammi and I were excited about the potential for this room as it was such a big empty space that desperately needed bringing to life. We both imagined an installation to fill the space. 

Taking lots of photos of the medicines and labels was key for me as that was where my interest lay, the oldness of the fragile bottles and explanations on the labels for me to work from back at college, to gather ideas as to what we could exhibit in these rooms.

Once we had finished looking in the Apothecary's Hall, Bruce took us over to the Great Glass House to see some of the plants that were in bloom, as during this time of year all the outside plants were non-existant. In here we took lots of photos of the plants and a couple of sketches. This also gave us some time to think about all that we had seen and what we wanted to take to put into the exhibition. I already knew that I wanted to take the old bottles and labels into consideration as that was what fascinated and interested me the most, the fact that they were so old and precious.