“Topping a hydrangea with cream? There’s humour in my art!”: Yan Wang Preston’s interview for The Garden Magazine

Award-winning photographer Yan Wang Preston, RHS Garden Bridgewater’s  artist in residence talks goose poo, rainbows and pairing dairy products with plants. This interview was originally published in The Garden. You can buy a print copy in an RHS Shop at an RHS Garden, or a digital copy on the RHS The Garden app. 

Yan Wang Preston’s residency is part of the OFFSHOOT, a collaboration between the University of Salford Art Collection, the RHS Garden Bridgewater and the Open Eye Gallery, and is generously supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. You can see Yan Wang Preston’s work at the RHS Garden Bridgewater, and at Open Eye Gallery’s exhibition The Perfect Flower (26 June – 31 August).

How did you become artist in residence at RHS Bridgewater?

I was approached by the RHS public engagement team who were exploring creative commissioning to tell untold stories about RHS Bridgewater. It felt like a natural fit. My previous work has explored our relationship with the natural world – from capturing the entire of China’s Yangtze River at 100km intervals, to more recently walking to and photographing the same Rhododendron ponticum bush on the South Pennine Moors every other day for a year. Visiting RHS Bridgewater revealed a garden that’s still evolving yet rich with history. Early in the residency I walked the 32 miles along the Rochdale and Bridgewater canals, from my house in West Yorkshire to the garden.

What parts of the Garden inspired your work? 

While exploring areas of Middle Wood that are sealed off  to visitors, I found items that had been lost or discarded. Some sparked my curiosity – a Victorian-looking lady’s leather boot, for example, and a fragment of paper where the only line I could decipher read “Take your clothes off”! You can’t help but wonder how the items got here and who left them? Dan Atherton, the RHS Interpretation Manager then showed me three crates full of objects, all collected by volunteers during the development of Middle Wood, prior to the garden’s opening. It tells us so much about the garden and its human story. I chose the objects I was most curious about and photographed them for my first series in the OFFSHOOT: Artists in Residence programme. The 12  resulting large black and white images are deliberately  minimal. We may think the site is owned by one group,  for one purpose – formerly the Earls of Ellesmere, now  the RHS – but these objects, in all their randomness,  question that narrative. Even the title of the series  – Goose Poo and Rainbow – is random! 

How did you come up with a title like that?

I met a volunteer called Margaret, who told me about arriving to lead a Tai Chi class and finding the lawn by Middle Wood covered in goose poo. After a frantic clean-up she invited the group to inhale and imagine a fine drizzle, just as it began to rain. She then joked about picturing a rainbow, and one appeared. I remember thinking that the history of this garden is as rich as a
rainbow, but as unruly as the geese. The found objects, however random, add to that richness and tell its story.

How is the work displayed?

We’ve printed the 12 images onto aluminium, so they’re weather resistant for around five years, and installed them in Middle Wood. Framed by the woodland, they’re already becoming part of the landscape, as shadow catchers, heat islands for flies or gathering sticky pollen. The effect will change as the pieces gradually weather and green over time. They’re in 11 different locations, some more obvious, others hidden to invite discovery. Each setting is carefully chosen to echo or enhance the composition, subtly encouraging you to speculate about the objects’ origins. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone recognised one of them – or could decipher the “Take your clothes off” paper fragment. We think it may be part of a play script, with misspellings that suggest it was written by a child.

Can you tell us more about your second series displayed at RHS Bridgewater, The Perfect Flower?

I’d seen the RHS Plant Trial of Hydrangea paniculata at its summer peak in 2024, and of course it looked spectacular. Like everything in RHS Bridgewater, it was so neat, with not a flower out of place. But returning after a windy winter’s day, I found dried flowerheads blown everywhere, caught in cracks and doorways – a real nuisance. It was a stark contrast to the regimental precision of the trials process. That’s when I started to think about what makes a perfect flower. How do we decide which flowers are worthy? First, I photographed the hydrangeas individually but I didn’t like the results. The images were beautiful – it’s hard not to take a beautiful picture of a hydrangea – but not interesting.

How did you turn them into something interesting?

By asking questions. In Britain, we love flowers, but what do we actually love about them? Why do we have the impulse to find perfection? I wanted to learn about the judging forum and how we’ve arrived at the criteria behind the RHS Recommended: Award of Garden Merit (rhsc). Most of it is aesthetic – how distinctive they look, their habit and flower size. The very showy
cultivars such as H. paniculata ‘Phantom’, with enormous flowerheads, have fewer fertile flowers. We’ve bred them to be bigger, but more sterile. So I’m also asking: what cost comes with perfection?

The Perfect Flower series is exhibited in the Potting Sheds. What else can visitors see here?

There’s also a short film featuring Fiona Davison, RHS Head of Libraries and Exhibitions, that explores the history of hydrangea cultivation in the UK, while one of the five main images, Journey from the Wild, shows the transformation from wild species to ‘worthy’ cultivar. On two large screens, you can see close-up footage of more than 100 Hydrangea paniculata cultivars, from both the RHS Plant Trial and the Plant Heritage National Plant Collection at Darley Park in Derby, showcasing their diversity. Bottom of the List looks at the cultivars judged to be the worst – too floppy or not ornamental enough. I photographed one of these plants like a classical botanical study, to challenge what’s actually wrong with it. Some of the photographs are more playful. One recreates a recreates a retro-style swimming cap of hydrangea flowers. Another, Pinky Winky Ice Cream, shows cone-shaped flowers of H. paniculata Pinky-Winky (‘Dvppinky’) topped with edible cream. It’s the first time I’ve used humour in my work! I hope it will engage with wider audiences.

What’s your perfect flower?

I have a soft spot for tree peonies. Growing up in China, they were once the national flower and symbolise feminine beauty. Now I’m swayed by the projects I’m working on. After researching and photographing Rhododendron ponticum for my previous project called With Love. From an Invader, I planted rhododendrons in my garden in Yorkshire. Now I have lots of hydrangeas – and funnily enough, some of those that were bottom of the list have found a home with me.

As told to Rebecca Wood, RHS Gardens Editor