Our conversation with featured guest Katie Zimmerman continues…
Part of your research explores how the Marianne North Gallery works as a built environment and how the gallery functions within the broader context of the gardens at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Why study these aspects of North’s contribution to botany?
One of the really fascinating things to me about North’s life and work is how such an individual and solitary woman, pursuing an equally individual project, was actually a fairly ordinary part of a broader, and highly social, botanical enterprise. We can see this very nicely when we look closely at the North Gallery as a space and the ways in which that space transcended its walls to become an integrated part of the gardens and the world beyond. Looking at how the gallery functioned as a built environment allows us to chart…