the people’s flower project, 2022
Leading up to the 2022 Jubilee celebrations of the Queen’s 70 years on the English throne, The Horsebridge Arts Centre and I invited people to make fake flowers in response to the question ‘What does the Jubilee mean to you?’ We ran workshops so that people could make responses onsite, or take materials to complete their own creations at home. The responses revealed nuanced, diverse and complicated opinions and feelings expressed in floral form. These individual sculptural responses were combined to form five large bouquets that were displayed on the balcony of the Horsebridge Arts Centre across the Jubilee weekend. As part of the project, we also recorded interviews with participants about their responses, which were shared on social media and displayed alongside the final artwork. This site specific public artwork offered people the opportunity to reflect upon their own engagement with the monarchy as an institution as well as their feelings for Queen Elizabeth as an individual. In a country with strict laws and social conditioning surrounding the royal family, welcoming individual opinions about the Jubilee was a powerful political act that focused celebrations on the community.
This project was commissioned by The Horsebridge Arts Centre with the generous support of the Kent Community Foundation and Arts Council England.
