The Calyx’s Sweet Addiction Royal Botanic Gardens is nature’s answer to Willy Wonka

Most people love it but what do people really know about chocolate? The team at The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney look set to change all that with a fun and informative new exhibition. Sweet Addiction allows people to experience chocolate as a botanical adventure that fuses together art, education, theatre and flora.

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The exhibition is the first for recently opened events and arts space The Calyx in the iconic gardens. A “Calyx” is an outer casing of a flower bud and the structure replaces the previous pyramid-shaped, Arc Greenhouse. The new doughnut-shaped space was opened to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the gardens and is a flexible, multi-purpose space that can be adapted for functions, exhibitions and more.

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Sweet Addiction was curated by Jimmy Turner, the Director of Horticultural Management for the gardens. It boasts the Southern hemisphere’s largest green wall with over 18000 plants. These shrubs have been arranged to spell out hidden words and symbols and it can take three people an entire day to change. The wall is efficient in terms of water consumption because taps at the top allow the liquids to flow through little trays and anything leftover is collected again at the bottom for re-use.

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The chocolate display is designed as a self-guided, 45 minute experience. Patrons will wander through a tropical rainforest and learn interesting facts like the relationship between chocolate and orchids and how many cacao pods are required to produce a single chocolate bar. They can then trace chocolate from its beginnings and as something that was only consumed by the upper class through to the different techniques that have been employed to make it more accessible. There is also a fun guessing competition where one lucky winner will receive a year’s supply of chocolate.

Other exhibitions and events will be planned to make full use of The Calyx and highlight it as one of the most exciting new venues in Sydney.

Sweet Addiction is open daily and runs until April 2017. For more information and tickets head to https://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/Visit/Sweet-Addiction

Images supplied and used with permission.

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