Step into a living archive through culture, creativity and memory at Resilient Roots, a unique temporary exhibition situated amongst the Southern African flora of Chelsea Physic Garden.

This powerful exhibition is the culmination of a two-year collaboration between the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre, Chelsea Physic Garden, and the School of Art, Architecture and Design at London Metropolitan University.

During 2023 and 2024,  in partnership with the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre, MA Visual Communication students in Graphic Design and Illustration met with South African elders from the diaspora community in London. These meetings took place at both at Chelsea Physic Garden and on campus at the university. Responding to the plants growing in the Garden’s newly renovated Southern African Glasshouse, students explored the structure of the plants, colonial legacies of collection, and the plants’ indigenous uses in health, healing, cuisine and ancestral traditions.

The South African Elders Group generously shared their knowledge and experiences of medicinal and culinary uses, cultural and traditional symbolism and insights into their familial migration stories. These conversations enabled the students to approach the plants as more than biological specimens and stimuli for drawings, rather they came to understand the plants as living vessels of resilience, growth and cultural heritage.

These multiple layers of engagement shaped a rich creative process where visual storytelling became a means of honouring both botanical and political roots. We’re excited to invite you to visit the gardens and see these artistic and personal responses to the plants in situ.

The Resilient Roots installation showcases the work of five emerging visual artists, whose specialisms include illustration, graphic design and animation:

Sammy Davis Guaman, Declan Munro, Ada Murati, Rebecca Tosoni, and Tea Marie Sudland Thjømøe

Each artist presents a series of striking poster artworks that explore Southern African plants as symbols of resilience, healing, memory and cultural continuity. Displayed alongside the very plants they represent, the artworks invite visitors to reflect on the interwoven narratives of people, place and nature.

This exhibition honours the profound contributions of members of the South African diaspora in Britain, whose reflections on land, heritage, and healing reframed the Garden’s Southern African plant collection through the lens of lived experience and highlighting themes of resilience and survival. As Vusi Mathebula shared, “Without the roots and without the land, we wouldn’t call it home,” and Jenni Kirby reminded us, “Hope has brightened our darkest days—it’s more than wishful thinking.”

Come and discover how plants, stories, and shared histories take root in this powerful fusion of art, activism and ancestral knowledge.