The Blade: Australia’s love affair with lawn

A Carrick Hill touring exhibition
This exhibition explores why Australians love lawn. Australians love gardens and gardening, and lawns are one of our most enduring landscape features. For over two centuries this much-loved use of grass has survived changes in horticultural fashions and environmental conditions.
The AGHS partnered with the Australian Museum of Gardening (part of Carrick Hill Historic House and Garden in Adelaide) to mount a national touring exhibition on a gardening subject aiming to attract a broad visitation. The lawn mower in all its manifestations is part of our national cultural life and an icon in Australian social history, exemplified by the Victa. The exhibition aimed to explore the Gardening Museum’s collection including 23 lawn mowers and hundreds of tools related to lawn grooming and care from the past century. The design brief emphasised creating a self contained exhibit offering both enjoyment and understanding of the subject: lawn and mowing. Humour was to be used as a key tool in bringing the exhibit alive with the pun in the title setting the tone. Although the invention of the lawn mower in 1830 was a game changing moment, the team understood that not everyone is inspired by this fact.
The exhibition is a part of the 40th Anniversary of the Australian Garden History Society promoting awareness and conservation of significant gardens and cultural landscapes.

Awards Submission

Part B Supporting Documentation