The FLAG Art Foundation and Madison Square Park Conservancy are pleased to present The Rose Garden Conference, a project by Australian artist Gabriella Hirst that comprises an interactive workshop exploring the influence of the Rosa floribunda ‘Atombombe,’ a cultivar developed by German rose breeder Reimer Kordes (1922-1997) in 1953. Participants of The Rose Garden Conference will be led through a grafting session of young roses and will have the opportunity to continue to cultivate and adopt their own rose plants.
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In 1953, German rose breeder Reiner Kordes developed a species of rose called Rosa floribunda ‘Atom Bomb.’ In 2015, collaborators Gabriella Hirst and Warren Harper presented How to Make a Bomb (currently on view as part of FLAG’s exhibition A Rose Is, on view through June 21, 2025), an interactive artwork wherein community members graft from the ‘Atomic Rose’ and surreptitiously plant the flower in public spaces, injecting the flower into collective consciousness as a vehicle for political violence.
Examining the structural connections between horticulture, state power, and nuclear colonialism, the project centers on this rare species of garden rose. Through processes of grafting and taking cuttings, How to Make a Bomb sees Hirst propagate new specimens of this rose from one of the few remaining plants of original species, and teaching others how to do the same through How To Make A Bomb public workshops and printed manuals. The instructional workshops draw together practical rose gardening advice with information on Britain’s current nuclear armament proliferations, European histories of testing nuclear weapons on Indigenous Lands in the 1950s (for example, in Australia, in the same years that the original “Atom Bomb” rose was being sold on European gardening markets), and the broader British colonial project of ‘Gardening the world’. Workshop participants are encouraged to plant their own, self-made “Atom Bomb” roses in private and public gardens across the UK. There are currently an unknown number of “Atom Bomb” roses growing in British soils.
About:
Gabriella Hirst is an artist living and working in Australia, Germany, and the UK. Hirst studied at the College of Fine Arts and the National Art School, Australia, between 2008-2012, and received an MFA at the Slade School, London, UK, in 2018, as recipient of the John Crampton Scholarship. From 2020-23, she was an Associate Lecturer at the RCA London School of Architecture leading the section ‘Practices of Care and Control.’ Hirst is the recipient of the 2020 ACMI/Ian Potter Moving Image Commission, the Marten Bequest Scholarship, and the Sidney Power Institute Prize. Her recent projects have been exhibited and commissioned by The Sainsbury Center, Norwich, UK; Kunsthalle Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany; the Fiorucci Foundation, London, UK; The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY; Focal Point Gallery, Essex, UK; The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; UQ Art Museum, St Lucia, Australia; and the Australian Center for the Moving Image, Melbourne, Australia. Recent residencies include the Villa Romana Testing Grounds Residency (Italy, 2024), and the Delfina Art Foundation (UK, 2025). She is part of the collective Atomic Terrain, who have performed and presented in CARA (NYC), the Wende Museum (LA) and within the special project program of Printed Matter Art Book Fair NYC (2024).
Madison Square Park Conservancy is the nonprofit entrusted by the City of New York to operate Madison Square Park, a 6.2-acre public space in the heart of Manhattan. Our mission is to conserve, maintain, and program this ever-evolving historic green space, including raising 100% of the park’s operating budget. Our dedicated team takes great pride in caring for and shaping an urban oasis for all to enjoy.