Audio Guide

Enter the Cloud Forest, a mysterious world veiled in mist. Take in breath-taking mountain views surrounded by diverse vegetation and hidden floral gems. And learn about rare plants and their fast-disappearing environment. Explore the tropical highlands amidst orchids, pitcher plants and ferns from the cool-moist Tropical Montane region. Be amazed as you encounter the breath-taking indoor waterfall at 30 metres and descend through the surreal mist-filled Cloud Walk and Treetop Walk.

Suspended within the Cloud Forest Dome is the grand scale Cloud Forest Persians, created for Chihuly’s 2019 exhibition at London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Despite the grandeur of the Cloud Forest Persians, its graceful cascading form is composed of delicate blue and green ribbed roundels. First exhibited in 1986, as part of his exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Palais du Louvre in Paris, Chihuly’s Persian series is a celebration of form, scale, and colour. Originally presented on pedestals, the series’ dramatic compositions have evolved to include installations mounted on walls, overhead on ceilings, and assembled in the form of chandeliers and towers. For Chihuly, Persians evoke an ancient sensibility and conjure notions of Venice, and the Near and Far East.

Chihuly began his Chandelier series in 1992 for an exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum. These sculptures are assembled with multiple handblown glass forms mounted to a steel armature. Chandeliers (and Towers) demonstrate Chihuly’s desire to mass and control colour on a grand scale. Over the years, he has explored both multicoloured compositions and variations on a single colour. Unlike traditional chandeliers, they reflect light instead of emitting it. His Chandeliers are often hung in unusual spaces and places, within the exhibition they can be found at the World of Plants, Cloud Forest Dome, Bayfront Pavilion, and at the SG50 Lattice.

Chihuly’s Fiori demonstrates the artist’s penchant for organic, free flowing forms that evoke the natural world. With the variety of forms in this series, the artist creates compositions that range from few standalone forms to multiple elements brought together in installations he calls Mille Fiori (Italian for “a thousand flowers”). These playful forms can also be found within the Serene Garden and the World of Plants.