Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck - (Almost) Ikebana & Related Explorations

Oxford Brookes University presents (Almost) Ikebana & Related Explorations, an exhibition
by Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck, marking the culmination of her artist residency within the Fine
Art department.

The exhibition brings together new and recent paintings, photographs, sculptures,
archives, and a newly developed publication, offering an expansive insight into Tagada
Hoffbeck’s ongoing participatory project (Almost) Ikebana, exploring the Japanese art of
flower arranging, and broader community-led initiative, The Gardening Drawing Club, which
she founded in 2021. The Gardening Drawing Club has delivered 90+ free visual art and
horticulture events for over 1800 adults and children across the UK and beyond, exploring
practices of joy, care, slowness, deep ecology, and collective growth.

The exhibition also features new ceramic responses by invited practitioners Sigrid Volders
(BE), Olivia Fiddes (UK), and Jynsym Ong (UK), created in dialogue with (Almost) Ikebana
vessels made by workshop participants over recent years. These collaborative works extend
the project’s ethos of shared authorship, playfulness, and care.

Collectively, the exhibition invites audiences to reflect on transnational practices and modes
of making rooted in community and gentle resistance to extractive and productivity-driven
systems. It explores the relationship between art and plants, and how both art and
gardens act as spaces for togetherness, observation, rest and continuous self exploration.
During her residency, Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck worked closely with students and staff at
Oxford Brookes, delivering workshops on natural dyeing and Ikebana, fostering hands-on
approaches to materials, form, and ecological awareness, and utilised bookmaking and
ceramics facilities. She also developed a new publication titled (ALMOST) IKEBANA,
produced using riso and letterpress printing facilities at Brookes, with written contributions
from George Collum, Miriam Melake, Kasia Murfet and Brookes lecturer Sam Skinner.

Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck will be present in the gallery on 21 and 28 February, offering
visitors the opportunity to meet in person and the new publication will be available. 

Opening event: 6.00pm - 8.00pm, Thursday, 19 February 2026, with musical recital by artist Jatinder Singh Durhailay

See further details of Johanna’s work here.