'Really exciting' - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland at New York Botanical Garden

Record ID: 1835790

  • Title: 'Really exciting' - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland at New York Botanical Garden
  • Date: 15th August 2024
  • Summary: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (AUGUST 14, 2024) (REUTERS) CLOCK EMBEDDED IN GREENERY, REVEALS ‘WHITE RABBIT’ MADE OF GREEN PLANTS AT "WONDERLAND: CURIOUS NATURE” EXHIBITION AT NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN REFLECTION OF RABBIT / RABBIT CHILDREN SITTING ON EDGE OF POND, SMILING FOR CAMERA, PARENTS ENCOURAGING SMILES (SOUNDBITE) (English) VISITOR, NEW YORK RESIDENT, NOELLE COMPTON, SAYING: “I think it's really exciting. I loved ‘Alice in Wonderland’, the book, ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ when I was growing up.” SIGNAGE READS “I’M LATE, I’M LATE, FOR A VERY IMPORTANT DATE!” / RABBIT (SOUNDBITE) (English) NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN, DIRECTOR OF EXHIBITIONS, CONTENT, AND INTERPRETATION, MICHAELA WRIGHT, SAYING: “The rabbit is the first thing that Alice encounters. She's sitting on a lazy Saturday with her sister outside in the grass, and all of a sudden she sees a rabbit with a pocket watch, right? And he's hopping and she follows him down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. And, so, for us, this rabbit is sort of our call to visitors to ‘fall down the rabbit hole’ with us, come fall into Wonderland and encounter some sort of magical things across the grounds.” LARGE, WHITE MUSHROOM ART INSTALLATION / CONSERVATORY BUILDING VARIOUS OF SIGNAGE READING (English): 'THE RABBIT HOLE' MOVING THROUGH A ‘RABBIT HOLE’ MADE OF CEDAR INSIDE CONSERVATORY BUILDING, EXIT TO VISITORS IN A ROOM OF UNIQUE PLANTS HANGING PLANTS /VISITORS LOOKING AT PLANTS LEAVES OF MIMOSA PUDICA, ‘SENSITIVE PLANTS,’ THAT CLOSE AFTER BEING TOUCHED BY FINGERS AMAZON WATER LILY, (VICTORIA AMAZONICA) / SIGNAGE OF TWO-DIMENSIONAL ALICE SITTING IN A BOAT SIGN READING ‘DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE’ / CONSERVATORY WITH THREE WOMEN WEARING SMALL, ‘ALICE IN WONDERLAND'-THEMED HATS (SOUNDBITES) (English) VISITOR, DIANE DRUGGE, CELEBRATING 93RD BIRTHDAY, SAYING: “She (daughter-in-law, Heather Drugee) decided, since I had never seen this and I'm as old as I am, the time is running out for trips like this. So here we are. [REPORTER OFF-CAMERA: “How old are you today?”] I’m 84. Today.” (SOUNDBITES) (English) VISITOR, DAUGHTER-IN-LAW OF DIANE, HEATHER DRUGGE, SAYING: “93!.” (SOUNDBITES) (English) VISITOR, DIANE DRUGGE, SAYING: “I mean 93! Look, I can't even remember how old I am. [REPORTER OFF-CAMERA:“93!?”] I have to ask the chorus. 93? Are you sure? That many?” (SOUNDBITES) (English) VISITOR, DAUGHTER-IN-LAW OF DIANE, HEATHER DRUGGE, SAYING: “Queen at 93!” SIGNAGE OF QUEEN OF HEARTS FROM ‘ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND,’ POINTING, READING ‘GET TO YOUR PLACES!’ / ARROW READING ‘ROSE GARDEN’ PINK ROSE MOVING DOWN PAVED PATHWAY TOWARDS ORNATE PERGOLAS COVERED WITH PLANTS AND ARCHWAY MADE FROM LARGE PLAYING CARDS AND DRAWING OF ALICE TRACKING ARCHWAY FROM RIGHT-TO-LEFT, FROM ALICE TO AN ENORMOUS THREE OF DIAMONDS PLAYING CARD (SOUNDBITES) (English) NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN, DIRECTOR OF EXHIBITIONS, CONTENT, AND INTERPRETATION, MICHAELA WRIGHT, SAYING: “Alice, is such a curious little kid and she sort of epitomizes that youthfulness when we're, like, asking a million questions, you know, any eight year old in your life is like, why, why, why? And we're sort of, I think, one of the really resonant things about Alice in Wonderland is that into adulthood, sometimes we lose that sense of curiosity that we have as kids. And we really want this exhibition to be a call to us all to, like, channel that inner kid and sort of re-focus our curiosity and say, ‘Wait a minute, maybe I kind of glazed over that tree, but why on earth does it have blue pine needles? That's crazy. How could a plant produce something like that?’ So yeah, really trying to just have a look a little bit longer than one second, you know, and sort of have that natural curiosity tapped into. And that's what we're hoping to do with this show.” MUSHROOMS, PLANTS / MUSHROOM ART BOY LOOKING AT LARGE MUSHROOM ART (SOUNDBITES) (English) NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN, DIRECTOR OF EXHIBITIONS, CONTENT, AND INTERPRETATION, MICHAELA WRIGHT, SAYING: “So, our exhibitions take a very long time to plan. We've been talking about doing a show about Alice in Wonderland for about a decade, and only about two and a half years ago we really were like, ‘Okay, we're doing it. This is the dates.’ And so it took about two, two and a half years, for the show to really materialize.” SIGNAGE READING “THE VICTORIAN GARDEN: DESIGNED TO DELIGHT” / VISITORS WALKING THROUGH CONSERVATORY / RABBIT ILLUSTRATION / VISITORS (SOUNDBITES) (English) NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN, DIRECTOR OF EXHIBITIONS, CONTENT, AND INTERPRETATION, MICHAELA WRIGHT, SAYING: “So, ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ obviously a beloved story, movie that still resonates with kids today, whether it's the older version or the newer version. And we were looking at ‘Alice in Wonderland’ as sort of a prompt for curiosity and a way of understanding the natural world. When it was published in 1865, Lewis Carroll was actually a mathematician. He's really interested in science and in math. And so the book itself really was an exploration of all of these different ideas about natural history. But for us, it's kind of this wonderful lens to say, like, ‘Isn't the natural world amazing?’ There is sort of this organic wonderland in our backyard, and we want to share that perspective with our visitors.” EXTERIOR OF MERTZ LIBRARY BUILDING AND FOUNTAIN HANGING BANNER READS ‘WONDERLAND CURIOUS NATURE’ INTERIOR OF LIBRARY ROTUNDA WITH VARIOUS SIGNS, TABLES, BOOKS, AND CHESS BOARD ‘ALICE IN WONDERLAND’ BOOKS FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES DISPLAY CASE CONTAINING BOOKS, PHOTOS, AND OTHER ITEMS HAND-DRAWN COPY OF ‘ALICE’S ADVENTURES UNDER GROUND’
  • Embargoed: 29th August 2024 17:19
  • Keywords: Alice Alice in Wonderland Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Chesire cat Lewis Carroll NYBG New York Botanical Garden exhibition garden hats tea white rabbit
  • Location: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
  • City: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
  • Country: US
  • Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,North America
  • Reuters ID: LVA001707415082024RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A giant rabbit greets guests at the New York Botanical Garden, like in the book “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll. But this is not a white rabbit from his well-known children’s story; rather, it’s a nearly 12-foot-tall (3.7 meters) green rabbit made of plants.
    “It’s exciting,” said Noelle Compton, a fan of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” who came to see the exhibition with her twin boys on Wednesday (August 14).
    “This rabbit is sort of our call to visitors to ‘fall down the rabbit hole’ with us, come fall into Wonderland and encounter some sort of magical things across the grounds,” said Michaela Wright, Director of Exhibitions, Content and Interpretation at New York Botanical Garden. “We were looking at ‘Alice in Wonderland’ as sort of a prompt for curiosity and a way of understanding the natural world.”
    This Alice-themed show was ten years in the making. And the exhibitions are spread across the Botanical Garden: outdoors and indoors.
    Visitors can head down a recreation of the rabbit hole at the conservatory and encounter unique plants such as Victoria amazonica water lilies, which Lewis Carroll might have seen at Oxford Botanical Garden.
    Diane Drugee was celebrating her 93rd birthday with a visit to the garden with her daughter-in-law.
    “I had never seen this and I'm as old as I am. The time is running out for trips like this. So here we are.” Drugee, who worked as a school teacher for 38 years, said this exhibit was great for school trips.
    “We are always studying Alice in Wonderland, even the seniors. You know, we go back and read some of the great literature. So this certainly is God bless Lewis Carroll. God bless his heart.”
    Inside the Mertz library, there is a display of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” books published in multiple languages. Since its first publication in 1865, the book has been translated into more than 170 different languages.
    And outside, across from the rose garden, visitors can enjoy a display titled “White Chess Sets” by artist and peace activist Yoko Ono. The all-white chess board with all-white pieces symbolizes the futility of war.
    The exhibition "WONDERLAND: CURIOUS NATURE" runs through Oct. 27, 2024.
    (Production: Hussein Al Waaile, Kyoko Gasha, Brad Horn)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2024. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register