Lee Mingwei: 'The Moving Garden'

If you live in Melbourne and you haven’t yet visited Lee Mingwei’s ‘The Moving Garden’ exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, do yourself a favour and pop in for a visit.

The internationally recognised Taiwanese-American artist is one of the leading creators of a type of art which actively encourages audience participation. ‘The Moving Garden’, like many of Mingwei’s other exhibitions around the world, invites visitors to engage with the artwork on both an emotional and physical level.

Mingwei explained the unique nature of the art piece with the National Gallery of Victoria.

‘In this project I present a space with beautiful, fresh flowers. Museum guests are invited to take one of these flowers with them when they leave the museum, if they will agree to do two things: first, to make a detour from their intended route when leaving the museum for their next destination; second, along this detour, to give the flower to a stranger who they feel would benefit from this unexpected act of generosity,’ he said.

Mingwei’s exhibitions are not only known for their participatory nature but also for encouraging acts of exchange and moments of connection between participants who are unknown to one another.

In an interview with Serena Bentley, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Victoria, Mingwei explained the role audiences play in his pieces.

“I often say that when an exhibition of my work opens it is around 40% complete, and only during the exhibition does the project take on a life of its own as a result of audience interaction, changing daily and becoming more complex and multilayered.,” he said.

“Therefore the audience plays the most important role of providing and enriching the content of the work.”

In a video for the National Gallery of Victoria, Lee explained his desire for everyone to experience the magic of ‘The Moving Garden’: “I hope you all will come to the gallery and experience this work in your own turn. The experience you’re going to get is really quite magical.”

The exhibition is held at the ground level Waterwall at the National Gallery of Victoria. The free exhibition will remain open from 15 October 2016 until 29 January 2017.