Colonial land dispossession and extractive capitalism frame Henry Moore’s ‘nature’: How elite art obscures ecological violence and land theft
Original framing: “Art and nature come together in stunning new Henry Moore exhibition” — New Scientist
The exhibition’s setting at Kew Gardens—a former colonial botanic garden—highlights how European botanical science and art were entangled in the theft of Indigenous knowledge and resources. Moore’s work emerged during the height of British imperialism, when land enclosure laws in Yorkshire displaced rural communities to make way for industrial agriculture and private estates. The 'romantic' portrayal of nature in his sculptures mirrors the era’s duality: a celebration of wild beauty alongside the violent suppression of Indigenous land rights.
The Henry Moore exhibition at Kew Gardens exemplifies how elite art institutions naturalise extractive relationships with land by framing nature as a muse for individual genius, while obscuring the colonial violence that enabled such art.
Moore’s sculptures, abstracted from organic forms, reflect a Eurocentric tradition that divorces culture from ecology—a tradition that Kew Gardens, as a former colonial botanic garden, embodies through its history of plant theft and Indigenous knowledge erasure. Cross-culturally, this framing contrasts with Indigenous worldviews where land is a living, reciprocal partner, not a passive backdrop. The exhibition’s silence on land reparations, Indigenous co-curation, and ecological restoration reveals how art institutions perpetuate systemic violence under the guise of beauty. A systemic solution requires land reparations, decolonised curation, and art that actively restores ecosystems, transforming Moore’s legacy from a symbol of extraction to one of reciprocity. This shift would demand institutions like Kew Gardens to confront their colonial past and present, centring marginalised voices in redefining humanity’s relationship with the natural world.