Salad Days

☆ A fleeting art exhibition in defunct historic greenhouses. ☆

SEPT - OCT 2025

NEW BEDFORD, MA

Salad Days was an exhibition in historic greenhouses of the late Allen Haskell, known as ‘a nurseryman with an artist’s eye’. Salad Days reimagines the defunct glass houses as vessels for dreaming: a contemplative nursery for a more hopeful future.

THE PLACE

Allen C. Haskell Public Gardens in New Bedford, MA is a hidden gem shaped by the late Allen Haskell, a nurseryman with an artist's eye. Known as "the king of topiary," his visionary aesthetic attracted Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Martha Stewart, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, while remaining just as beloved by local do-it-yourselfers making the pilgrimage to his nursery. Now a public garden owned and cared for by The Trustees of Reservations, the grounds hold rare trees and plant species, wooded pathways, and carved stone wells, alongside remnants of Haskell's topiary and landscape design.

Once overflowing with plant life, the historic greenhouses now stand quiet and defunct, awaiting future restoration. Salad Days took root in this liminal moment, transforming the glasshouses into a curatorial experiment that placed contemporary works in dialogue with the historical remnants of a once functional plant nursery.

THE CONCEPT

Work by Kasey Ott and Maíra Senise in Greenhouse #2

Salad Days was a celebration of the urge to ornament, to myth-make, to wool-gather. A soft rebellion against the sterile and the mass-produced.

In a world overwhelmed by mass production, digital overstimulation, and algorithmic sameness, Salad Days offered a counterpoint. We are drawn to ornamentation, traditional and naive craft, the handmade, the slow, the flawed, and the found: artifacts that carry the unmistakable imprint of the human hand.

OPENING NIGHT

CHLOROPHILIA: Equinox Performance and Elixir by Willa Van Nostrand, held in the sweeping field with bats swooping overhead.
Harp and vocals performed by Myles Goulart from within one of the greenhouses.
A participatory automatic drawing exercise for guests, made in collaboration with the land. The resulting works were later incorporated into the exhibition inside the greenhouses.

Opening Night was a gathering of artists, locals, and faraway visitors donning their Salad Days best and wandering the gardens as night fell. Dress was encouraged as part of the experience, creating a heightened sense of connection.

The evening also featured a curated grazing table.

THE EXHIBITION

Animais sobrepostos by Maíra Senise

Our first happening transformed three historic greenhouses into a fleeting, experimental exhibition featuring twenty-one artists and over sixty works. Visitors moved along garden paths, peering through greenhouse windows to view the work. We tested the bounds of curating in unconventional spaces and, through this, encouraged the public to expand their curiosity and look deeper. These experiences invite the community to reimagine their world and engage with nature, each other, and their own creativity in new ways.

We designed custom, site-specific exhibition signage and hosted a digital gallery where collectors could purchase work.

21

ARTISTS

64

WORKS

3

GREENHOUSES

THE ARTISTS

Work by Stephanie Land and Beatrice Alder in Greenhouse #3

From Scotland to California, 21 artists were invited to show work that bridged the functional and the fantastical— pieces that feel like tender inventions, emotional relics, or hopeful fictions.

Beatrice Alder (MA)
Elaine Alder (MA)
M. Aragon (MD)
Reilly Blum (GA)
Siri Burt (NY)
Victoria Crouch (LA)
Sophie deJesus (IL)
Lily Fein (LA)
Lara Harrington (MA)
Stephanie Land (NY)
Lobbin Liu (NY)
Suzie McMurtry (CA)
Michael Medeiros (MA)
Kasey Ott (MA)
Greer Pester (UK)
Mimi Pinheiro (MA)
Allison Reho (TX)
Maíra Senise (NY)
Carl Simmons (MA)
Stéphanie Williams (MA)
Cheyenne Yu (NV)

Allen C. Haskell propagation greenhouse installation by Carl Simmons

[Detail from] Fount of Greenest Judgement by Mimi Pinheiro

Snake Spool and Mini Pot Study by Cheyenne Yu

Abbot + Mi Casa, Mi Corazon by Maíra Senise

Milk Hedges Flower Plaque by Mimi Pinheiro

Requiem for the Colony by Stéphanie Williams

[Detail from] Allen C. Haskell propagation greenhouse installation by Carl Simmons

A living being, a building, and a city operate the same way by Lobbin Liu

Featured In

"In an anxious era of doomscrolling, political and social turmoil, and the counterintuitive belief that an AI prompt might somehow magically turn someone into an artist, musician or poet, [In Salad Days] a quiet walk in a public garden might, at least momentarily, offer a quiet respite from the collective dread."

— Don Wilkinson, “Salad Days: Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts,” NB Light, Sept. 28, 2025
"[Salad Days] was an absolute dream, a whisper, a prayer, a celebration of life worth living, of people coming together, of art and ideas and inspiration being shared in community. Artists, visionaries, revelers from near and far joined us to frolic in the gardens, engaging with plant life, experiencing the textures of stone, witnessing the bats out at dusk gracing the sky with their hungry swoops. A reminder of why we persist, why we make connections, why we resist oppressive forces, why we gather in community, what life is fucking for."

—Nico Lebreaux | Owner of Wild Heart Herb House
"This show brought me out of a deep sleep. Everything about it was exactly what I needed it to be - the perfect song. Thank you for inviting me into this experience and helping me take my place as a maker once again."

—Lara Harrington | Salad Days Artist + Founder of Hotel Papel
“The sun glints off the glass, you see your own reflections. You see the people on the other side of the structure. There are smudges and fingerprints on the glass. Each visit (and I suggest several) might mean raindrops running down the windows. There may be condensation, fogging, perhaps an early frost. Each time, it may be different. The conditions make the experience and that is its joy. It’s art in the oasis.”

— Don Wilkinson, “Salad Days: Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts,” NB Light, Sept. 28, 2025
“Salad Days was so thoughtful curated. It was amazing to see the Haskell green houses transformed into a wonderland of local art and community celebration!”

—Carley Byers | Art Lover + Local Filmmaker
"I really enjoyed the experience of Salad Days. The scale of some of the pieces was surprising, I did not expect a functioning fountain! I just loved the whimsy of it all."

— Molly McCarthy | Local Art Lover