Into The Seeds Of Time
OmVed gardens, London, 2025

Exhibition Design: PiM.studio Architects
Graphic Design: Atelier Waldbillig
Artist: Vivienne Schadinsky
Curator: Sol Polo
Photography by Maurizio Mucciola Photography

An exhibition presenting the work of artist Vivienne Schadinsky and her year-long residency at OmVed Gardens, exploring the journey of beans from seed to harvest and their potential for human and planetary well-being.
The exhibition offers a unique portrait of beans’ rich diversity and overlooked benefits.
As part of her residency, Schadinsky set out to explore the intersections of food, ecology and community through a plant that has been cultivated by humans for thousands of years.
The result is an invitation to step into the artist’s unique expression, connecting her art with ecological insights from scientific advisors, the results of a series of growing tests carried out at OmVed and in her own studio, and her long-standing fascination with Japanese culture and crafts.

PiM.studio intervention for the exhibition aims to present the artist’s works through a series of simple white painted plywood plinths and supports to mediate the experience between artworks and the buildings in OmVed Gardens.
In the barn building, PiM.studio introduced a series of plinths for the smaller works and a long modular wall/platform in the larger gallery space.
Sheer fabrics featuring illustrations by Atelier Waldbillig graphic design studio are installed throughout the exhibition to provide visitors with a narrative journey.
On the barn terrace, lighter sheer curtains are printed with close-up details of Vivienne’s delicately beautiful paintings, creating an immersive experience as visitors pass through them.
In the Seeds Vault, a row of internal storage shelves has been filled with white wood panels, forming a simple backdrop for the delicate seed portrait series. Outside, the printed sheer fabrics are used to create a more intimate atmosphere in the engawa, allowing visitors to engage in a reflective experience within this semi-outdoor “in-between space.”
Finally, in the greenhouse, only a few simple elements have been introduced alongside the reproduction of the artworks. There are basic shelves for the dorodangos, and zoomed-in details of the paintings playfully overlap with the artist’s work while leaving centre stage to the growing plants in the greenhouse.

At a time of climate emergencies and resource scarcity, it is crucial to address issues of over-extraction and over-consumption in our design projects. For this exhibition, our goal was to use as little as possible and to minimise waste in the design process. All the plinths and platforms were made from wood reclaimed on-site from the old glasshouse that was being dismantled during the exhibition’s installation. This approach reduced waste and reused materials, thus minimising the need for new extraction.

We opted to leave the visible marks and scratches on the repurposed wood panels to celebrate the importance of reuse and the circular economy.
This choice demonstrates that beauty can be found in reclaimed materials, where marks and scratches are seen as a value rather than a defect.