Enfilade

From ArtHist.net and the conference website:

2nd International Congress of Historical Botanical Gardens
Wien, 29–31 July 2024

Proposals due by 15 January 2024

The Austrian Federal Gardens in cooperation with the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna, the Natural History Museum Vienna, and the International Association of Botanic Gardens (IABG) look forward to an interesting continuation of the 1st International Congress of Historical Botanical Gardens held in Lisbon in 2021. The initial impulse to communicate the issues and importance of botanical gardens to a broader public, highlighting their history as well as their importance and building a common network will be continued in 2024. For more than 450 years, plants have been collected, cultivated, studied, and exhibited in Vienna. This long and continuous tradition makes Vienna one of the most important locations for current and historic plant research and conservation.

This second event will expand the focus to include conservation and preservation of plants and gardens. How can we protect historical botanical gardens and their heritage from the major threats of our time, such as lack of resources, climate change, war, and conflicts of all kinds? What can we learn from the turbulents in the past? We invite papers related to the fields of Botanical Gardens, Historical Gardens, Plant Collections, and related disciplines. Submissions from students, associations, and independent researchers are encouraged. Presentation formats include 5-minute pitch presentations and 20-minute talks, as well as posters.

Examples for potential presentations:

Session 1 | The Transition of Historical Botanical Collections
• Survival of botanical collections in times of war or crisis
• Transition of princely botanical collections into the ownership of modern republics
• Transition of colonial collections into the ownership of independent states
• Endangerment of historical botanical collections during military conflicts
• Historical botanical collections and climate crisis
• Preliminary protective measures

Session 2 | Horticulture: Challenges in Daily Horticulture Practice
• Pest control and measures
• Prevention: biological cultivation and biological treatments
• Changes in cultivation because of climate change
• Cultivation and conservation of single plants of particular high value
• Protection of the collection
• Handling and protection of plants for and during exhibitions

Session 3 | Science: Sharing of Knowledge
• Importance of traditional horticultural crafts in historical botanical gardens
• Methods to conserve and transmit (horticultural) knowledge
• Which knowledge is transmitted
• Transition of traditional knowledge and traditional techniques to modernism
• Networking: international and transdisciplinary relationships

Session 4 | Historical Botanical Gardens
• Portraits of historical botanical gardens (existing and lost)

Please send your abstract (maximum of 250 words, excluding title and affiliation) as a Word file with an indication of the topic as well as the preferred presentation format to ichbg2024@bundesgaerten.at before 15 January 2024. You will be informed about acceptance and format of the presentation by 25 March 2024. For further information, please see the conference website, and don’t hesitate to contact the organizing committee at ichbg2024@bundesgaerten.at.