Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances Jon Drori is no longer able to join us for this lunchtime talk. Advolly Richmond will still be appearing and we’re thrilled to welcome our Design Director, Carl Robertshaw who will be in conversation with her.

Advolly and Carl will be looking at the iconic plants featured across our site exploring their histories and stories and how these have inspired and influenced the design of the PoliNations site.

Advolly Richmond is a Garden/Plant and Social Historian based in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, UK. She is a trustee of the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust, Castle Bromwich Historic Garden Trust and she sits on the RHS Education Committees. Through her RHS training and qualifications she went on to achieve an MA in Garden History from the University of Bristol. A member of the Garden Media Guild, she is a television presenter on BBC Gardener’s World and is a plant history contributor to BBC Gardener’s Question Time and also lectures on a variety of 16^th-20^th century topics. She advocates that garden and plant history is for everyone because it helps us all to understand the value of historic designed landscapes, parks, cemeteries and other public green space, because only when you understand the value of something can you protect and preserve it for future generations. She also tries to promote diversity and representation, because you cannot be what you cannot see. She also produces The Garden History Podcast which can be found on her website.

Carl Robertshaw is a unique multidisciplinary designer and artist, working with an inclusive approach at the intersection of performance, engineering and fine art. Over the past 25 years Carl has enjoyed collaborating with artists such as Bjork, Kylie Minogue, Hussein Chalayan, Take That, Peter Gabriel, Anohni, Coldplay, Editors and Ellie Goulding. Carl’s work has been celebrated on world stages such as The Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show, New York’s Radio City Music Hall, Manchester International Festival and the 2012 London Olympic opening and closing ceremonies. Find out more about Carl's work here.

This event will feature BSL interpretation throughout.

Jon Drori is the bestselling author of 'Around the World in 80 Trees’ which entwines plant science with history, culture and folklore, and its sequel ‘Around the World in 80 Plants’. His works contributed to the PoliNations Iconic Plants research and artists’ representations, which can be found within the PoliNations super garden. Jon will be in conversation with renowned garden writer, historian and presenter on BBC Gardener’s World, Advolly Richmond, who is a long term friend of PoliNations having been involved in the original research and development for the project!

With his TED talks on botanical subjects having been viewed by millions, we can't wait to welcome him to our Lunchtime Talks programme!

Jon is a Trustee of The Eden Project and an Ambassador for the WWF and The Woodland Trust, as well as being an Honorary Professor at Birmingham University's Institute of Forest Research. Jon also spent nine years as a Trustee on the boards of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Gardens, and the Woodland Trust.