The exhibition Early Spring: The Garden of Small Gestures, draws inspiration from Modern Nature, a book by the British filmmaker and artist Derek Jarman (1942–1994). Toward the end of his life, Jarman purchased an old fisherman’s cottage on a beach near the nuclear power station in Dungeness, Kent. At Prospect Cottage, as he so named the house, he created a peculiar garden, despite the inhospitable conditions—a garden that remains his artistic statement to this day: resolutely unconventional, wild, resilient, and strange. The book contains diary entries from the years in which Jarman found solace in gardening during his terminal days. The diary of the garden and that of its caretaker merge into a single narrative. The works of contemporary art selected for the exhibition Garden of Small Gestures respond to Jarman’s text both directly and loosely. They show that a garden can serve as a portrait, a ritual, a refuge – an open-ended activity that requires perseverance, a tolerance for not having things fully under control, and an ability to adapt. The greenhouse in the Royal Garden also offers a flower showcase. It is an alchemy that the team of gardeners at Prague Castle fine-tunes well in advance. By the end of April, they have a clear idea of the main floral performers for the following year. In the fall, they plant them in hundreds of pots and set them up in the greenhouses on the garden grounds. Then the dance begins, one that the local gardeners have been perfecting for over a decade. The bulbs move between cold, warmth, winter light, and shade according to a carefully choreographed plan so that the flowers bloom right on time for the exhibition. You can look forward to twenty-nine varieties of tulips, six hyacinths, fifty-seven small and early bulbs, twenty-four daffodils, and ten hippeastrums. And they will all bloom just for you. Exhibiting artists: Iva Davidová, Efemér, David Fesl, Jakub Hájek & František Hanousek, Jakub Hons, Eva Jaroňová, Adrián Kriška, Kristina Láníková, Barbora Lungová, Michael Nosek, Antonie Stanová, Jaro Varga date and time daily 10:00—17:00