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In addition to our permanent display houses featuring gorgeous landscape architecture, we host a variety of dynamic exhibits and installations from Chicago-based artists, community members, and Conservatory staff. Peruse some of our most recent exhibits below, and check back for updates on our future and upcoming exhibit plans.
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The Garfield Park Conservatory is partnering with Art West to host the 2025 Black Plant It activation called The Cultivation, an exhibition exploring the intricate connections between the Black human experience and the natural world. We are representing artwork that reflects themes of growth, resilience, and spiritual freedom, observing nature as an inspiration for storytelling and self-expression.
This exhibit will be on view in the Community Room whenever it is open.
Exhibition Dates: April 17 – May 14, 2025
Opening & Artist Talk: April 19th at 11am-12:30 (Community Room)
Art & Apothecary: Honey Sugar Scrub Workshop on Wed 4/30 6-7:30pm (Community Room)
Dear Earthlings: Environmental Justice for Us Panel Wed 5/14 6-7:30pm (Community Room)
Garfield Park Conservatory & Gardens is thrilled to announce the unveiling of a vibrant new mural titled A Place to Grow Our Souls. The mural, designed and painted by Chicago-based artist Chi Nwosu, is located in the hallway connecting the indoor Desert House to the outdoor City Garden. The mural’s final touches will be completed by February 13, 2025, and will be open to the public immediately thereafter.
In summer 2024, the Conservatory began collaborating with Good Things Vending, a Chicago-based vending machine that’s about spreading joy through unexpected surprises. The Conservatory is the seventh location site for Good Things Vending. The machine is filled with handmade crafts, local art, practical and nostalgic goodies, vintage finds and more – it’s like a treasure hunt each time you visit.
Chi Nwosu created the vibrant vending machine design and partnered with the Conservatory to create an adjoining wall mural titled “A Place to Grow Our Souls”.
Chi Nwosu, a Black, nonbinary, queer Nigerian artist, brings their unique vision to life in this piece, which weaves together elemental, political, and spiritual symbols. Their work focuses on marginalized experiences and invites viewers to explore a world rooted in love, curiosity, interconnectedness, and collective liberation. Chi’s artistic practice emphasizes the power of art to create transformative experiences and to envision new cultural images that challenge existing norms.
“A Place to Grow Our Souls” is inspired by the words of Grace Lee Boggs, who taught that “Art can help us envision the new cultural images we need to grow our souls.” This stunning mural reflects the beauty of nature, celebrating both human and non-human kin with symbolic representations of the lush landscapes found within Garfield Park Conservatory. The mural features vibrant depictions of echinacea, false sunflowers, pond lilies, bellflowers, eastern prickly pear, tropical plants, and nasturtiums—plants that thrive within the Conservatory’s gardens and echo the interconnectedness of life.
The central imagery includes two children symbolizing the nurturing of relationships with both the Earth and one another, while a monarch butterfly and bumblebee emphasize the delicate balance of life. The mural serves as both a celebration of nature and a call to action: to connect deeply with the Earth, to embrace our shared futures, and to imagine a world where all beings—human and beyond—are valued and cared for.
“A Place to Grow Our Souls” is not just a visual experience; it’s a powerful invitation to embrace imaginative courage and build a future where compassion, respect, and connection form the foundation of our shared world.
About Chi Nwosu
Chi Nwosu is an artist based in Garfield Park, Chicago. Their work focuses on the intersection of identity, social justice, and the human experience, and aims to engage viewers with themes of love, collective liberation, and ecological interconnectedness. Chi’s art seeks to build community and push boundaries, offering new ways of seeing and being.
This year’s Spring Flower Show, “Rooted in Mystery” explores the critical parts of plants that we don’t usually see – the roots! In addition to finding and delivering water and nutrition to the leaves and stems, roots perform many lesser known but important functions in the lives of plants. For instance, plants “talk” to each other via chemical and electrical signals emitted by their roots to aid in survival. Visitors will learn about the different types of roots and the cool stuff they do while enjoying a marvelous display of spring plants, including azaleas, pansies, snapdragons, astilbe, baptisia, hydrangeas, and 26 different varieties of tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths.
You can come and enjoy Rooted In Mystery from Feb 12th, 2025 – May 11th, 2025. This exhibit is included with your reservation. Book a reservation here (link opens in a new tab).
By Chris Garofalo
See it in Desert House
Designed by Daniel C. French and Edward C. Potter for the Columbia Exposition of 1893
See them in the Outdoor Gardens
By Said Ben Adiba, Hassan Jemghili, and Jawad Rizki
See it in Horticulture Hall
By Lorado Taft
See them at the top of Fern Room
By student artists at Howe School of Excellence and Kat Powers
See it in the Community Room
Photos from the Chicago Park District Special Collections
See it in the Jensen Room
See it outside Sugar from the Sun
“Since new developments are the products of a creative mind, we must therefore stimulate and encourage that type of mind in every way possible.”
George Washington Carver
Most know George Washington Carver for his contributions to agricultural science through the development of hundreds of peanut products. However, he was also a gifted artist whose biggest inspiration was nature. It was Carver’s creative lens that motivated him in all of his greatest scientific achievements. The Creative Mind of George Washington Carver Artist’s Garden Show will provide visitors insight about Carver’s artistic and scientific development and the gifts he shared with the world.
Carver understood that our emotional peace is interdependent on our surroundings, and he believed that everyone deserved to be surrounded by beauty. George Washington Carver teaches about the endless inspiration available in nature and the power of allowing that creativity to blossom. Visitors will find inspiration in the Artist’s Garden this summer by enjoying the beautiful floral landscape inspired by Carver’s paint washes & botanical illustrations. Through interpretive panels, visitors will learn more about the Carver’s fascination with the botanical and how it infused his work.
The Creative Mind of George Washington Carver Artist’s Garden Show opens July 3, 2024 in the Artist’s Garden. It can and can be enjoyed through September 22, 2024.
Reservations can be made on our website starting June 3rd,2024.
The exhibit “Meeting History: A Garfield Park Citizen Archive” is on display at the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago from February 16 to June 21. This project visualizes the history of Garfield Park through a citizen archive built in collaboration with local residents. The resulting archive invites you to learn more about the Garfield Park neighborhood through the photographs and stories of those who spent their time there.
This project is a collaboration between the CatchLight Local Visual Desk, led by CatchLight Local Fellow Samantha Friend Cabrera, in collaboration with CatchLight, ProPublica, and the Institute for Nonprofit News, and made possible with generous support from the Kresge Foundation, McCormick Foundation and PhotoWings.
Programming
Programming to be held during the exhibition to be announced soon!
CatchLight, is a visual-first media organization that leverages the power of visual storytelling to inform, connect, and transform communities. They bring resources and organizations together to discover, develop, and amplify visual storytellers at all levels. In 2019, CatchLight launched the CatchLight Local Visual Desk–A collaborative model for visual journalism that is advancing trust and representation in local news and media
ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force. We dig deep into important issues, shining a light on abuses of power and betrayals of public trust — and we stick with those issues as long as it takes to hold power to account.
This year’s Spring Flower Show, What’s in a Name?, explains the history and science of botanical nomenclature alongside a beautiful flower show full of blooms. Plant names are an important way of communicating history, culture, and identity. In addition, because there are many plants with the same common name, or many common names for the same plant, knowing the botanical name helps people know exactly which plant is which. Learn about how to identify plants amongst stunning spring blooms like Tulipa ‘Rococo’, Lilium ‘Josephine’, Viola ‘Matrix Yellow’ and Anemone ‘Giant Blue Poppy’.
The Spring Flower Show opens on February 14th, and runs through May 12th, 2024, in the Show House and is included with every reservation.
This seasonal outdoor exhibit will open on July 5th and run through September 17th, 2023
Afrofuturism is a social, political and artistic movement. It envisions an improved future world for African-descended peoples. The African-descended people and cultures play a key role in the creation of that world. South Side native, artist Kee Merriwether, made this body of work. Garfield Park residents also shaped the exhibit. It seeks to represent African-descended people in a rich and robust environment. The need to fight environmental injustice is no longer needed, because this world is now just.
The Garfield Park Conservatory’s 2023 Spring Flower Show returns February 15th! This year’s show, “Bee’s Knees” is a peek into the wondrous relationship between bees and blooms. Beautiful blooming Spring bulbs such as tulips, daffodils, hyacinth, hydrangeas, and delphiniums will be featured this year. Empty observation and demo hives from GPC’s beekeeping program are set amongst the blooms, giving a glimpse into the world of a bee.
The Spring Flower Show: Bee’s Knees February 15 through May 14, 2023.
Reservations required.
The 2022 Artist’s Garden exhibit Garden Nouveau was an homage to the Art Nouveau movement. Art Nouveau was influenced by the emerging science of botany and the shape and movement of nature. The garden layout is inspired by many of the motifs seen throughout the architecture and design of this art style. Garden Nouveau will showcase many of the flowers Élisabeth Sonrel, an artist known for magnificent posters and watercolors, painted such as lilies, roses, hydrangeas, and oleanders.
This seasonal outdoor exhibit was open July 6, 2022 – October 2, 2022.
The Garfield Park Conservatory’s 2022 Spring Flower Show “Knock Knock” was a fun, playful reprieve from the long Chicago winter. Beautiful blooming flowers, including tulips, hydrangeas, daffodils, and hyacinth, were featured this year. Doors from the Rebuilding Exchange were hung among the blooms and there was be an abundance of knock knock jokes throughout the Show House.
The Spring Flower Show: Knock Knock ran February 26 through May 8, 2022.
The 2021 Artist’s Garden exhibit Still Life in Real Life: Charles Ethan Porter was filled with fruits and flowers that can be found in the still life paintings of African American artist Charles Ethan Porter; including strawberries, carnations, violets, sunflowers and much more. It ran from July 28 through October 17.
Saturation concentrates groups of blooming flowers so that visitors will be able to see and understand the wide range of hues and tints within each color and enjoy their vivid, rich and intense nuances. Saturday, February 27 through Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 9.
Friday, February 14 through March 17, 2020. This exhibit closed early due to COVID-19.
