Now in its 20th year and back in full swing after the COVID 19 pandemic, NYBG is bringing an exceptional presentation for this year’s Orchid Show entitled The Orchid Show: Natural Heritage.

For the 20th annual orchid extravaganza, landscape Artist Lily Kwong exhibits her immersive and dynamic designs. Throughout the exhibit Lily Kwong highlights her Chinese heritage by exploring the physical and psychic healing power of orchids. The exhibit is running from February 18 through April 23, 2023 in the NYBG Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.

Guest designer Kwong is featuring beguiling installations of thousands of orchids in the hope of recapturing our ancestral veneration of the land which previous generations often worked to produce food, environmental beauty and health. Lily Kwong’s designs touch the imagination and spirit with ethereal, peaceful landscapes inspired by ancient Chinese garden design and artistic principles and philosophical perspectives.

Understanding the diversity, adaptability and global cultural significance of orchids, Ms. Kwong was inspired to fashion spaces throughout the Garden based on classic paintings of Chinese mountainscapes. The Palms of the World and Reflecting Pool Gallery in the main entrance of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory and the showcase theater gallery in the interior of the conservatory feature such mountainscapes festooned with orchids and other plantings.

The paintings that influenced Lily Kwong were passed down through her family from Shanghai. The effects created with stones, water features and companion plantings throughout the conservatory display all the variety of orchids imaginable including iconic and popular moth orchids as well as rare specimens.

The mountainscape designs meld ecology, culture, myth and spiritual solace that was present in Kwong’s heritage. The orchids also are representative in Chinese medicinal traditions and are used extensively for herbal teas and remedies. Kwong’s belief and interpretations of nature in the designs reinforce nature’s healing powers and encourage visitors to understand how the natural environment is crucial to our well being and soul’s equilibrium.

Kwong collaborated with NYBG horticulturalists and Exhibitions staff to identify and assemble a gorgeous selection of orchids that are native to Asian countries. The displays are visually dramatic and striking. Also, they are emotionally evocative, inspiring visitors toward inner reflection and serenity in a remembrance that nature’s rhythms and harmonies impact our own survival on this planet.

Kwong is the first woman of color to take on the role of NYBG guest designer of the Orchid Show. She felt an urgency to “celebrate an Asian-centered perspective in the midst of this charged and precarious moment.” Her intention with the entire exhibit is to “offer a bridge of cultural understanding across the valley between us, and act as an invitation to celebrate the diverse lineages that make up our country.”

Kwong’s vision for the exhibit dovetails with the NYBG’s mission. Jennifer Bernstein, Chief Executive Officer and The William C. Steere Sr. President of The New York Botanical Garden stated, “One of our major goals here at this beloved green space in the Bronx is to inspire visitors and learners of all ages to appreciate, respect and care for nature.”

It is no surprise that the annual Orchid Show is one of the most popular of exhibits at the Garden. Jennifer Bernstein highlighted that the orchid exhibition provides an opportunity to feature the most diverse and celebrated of “our unparalleled living plant collections” so that the Garden may “educate the public about NYBG’s plant research and conservation work.”

To be able to share the love of orchids and plants with Kwong (she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University’s Urban Studies program and participated in the Landscape Design program at NYBG-2017) in a collaboration which enhances the Garden’s mission was a pleasure for all who worked on the exhibit.

This was especially so for Kwong, a Los Angeles-based artist who employs her varied talents and knowledge of horticulture, urban design, contemporary art, climate awareness, urban agriculture and wellness to reconnect people with nature through transformative landscape projects and site-specific botanical art installations.

Kwong’s career is particularly well placed for her goal to reconnect people with nature through her artfully designed botanical theater. She has been part of numerous public art initiatives since she began in 2017. These include botanical installations at The Highline, New York; Faena Arts, Miami; Grand Central Terminal, New York; Taipei Night Market, Taiwan; Bal Harbor Shops, Florida to name a few.

As a result accolades have come her way: ARCHMARATHON & Dezeen Awards in 2020 for Glossier Seattle and the World Spa Awards for Shou Sugi Ban House in East Hampton, New York. Kwong was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 (Art & Style) list in 2018. She has been selected to speak at MOCA, The Aspen Ideas Festival, The World Youth Forum, Design Miami and NeueHouse.

When you are sauntering through the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory enjoying Kwong’s fabulous designs, also meditate on the importance of this incredible gift to New Yorkers that the Garden brings as a special haven and sanctuary to decompress and relax into nature’s wonders through every season. The Garden comprises a 250-acre landscape which includes a 50-acre, old-growth forest through which the Bronx River and waterfall meanders. It is breathtaking year-round.

And don’t forget to visit the Garden library at the far entrance, the most important botanical and horticultural library in the world. The LuEsther T. Mertz Library houses 11 million archival items spanning ten centuries and forming a historical record of plant species and extinction.

Most importantly, know that the Garden is dedicated to conservation as well as research. It and takes in and restores plants which have been pirated as rare and exotic species for sale, sometimes worth thousands of dollars. The William and Lynda Steere Herbarium (the largest in the Western Hemisphere with 7.8 million plant and fungal specimens), is home to scientists. These work on-site in various cutting-edge molecular labs and in areas worldwide where biodiversity is most at risk.

Reminders! On select evenings during The Orchid Show: Natural Heritage, adults 21 and over can enjoy the exhibition’s “Orchid Nights,” with music cash bars and food available for purchase. To learn more about The Orchid Show go to the NYBG website for tickets and other information about NYBG. https://www.nybg.org/