Review by Dr. Suneel Mehmi. Images courtesy of the Saatchi Gallery with permission granted to reuse. This is an unpublished first draft for the Plant Curator website – https://plantcurator.com/
An inspiration for the ages and a fount of creativity, flowers have been the originating force, subject and detail of the masterpieces of all cultures. A colossus of endeavour and love, the flower exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery celebrates the contribution – and the omnipresence – of these unparalleled objects of beauty up to and including the present moment. The achievement? To have made a discriminating incision into the ubiquity of the flower in art so that the satisfactory slice can be served up – and digested.
Ranging across two floors which house large-scale installations, technically innovative videography, paintings, graphic design, textiles and photography, over 500 unique artworks and objects form the display. Organisation across this wealth of material is found in nine sections which deal with topics such as fashion, books and film, and representations of the flowers in the work of emerging contemporary artists.
In one room, we find the bespoke installation piece by Rebecca Louise Law, made up of over 100,000 dried flowers that have been salvaged from the wasteful society. A creation of sublimity from rejection which can be viewed from the floor or from above in the balcony. Another space has been transformed into an innovative and interactive digital projection by French artist Miguel Chevalier where we move the flowers and, in turn, they move us. A virtual garden of the imagination.
There is a mixture of justifiably perennial sources of delight such as Boticelli’s Primavera and the designs of William Morris alongside the unknown and uncontemplated work of others around the globe. Highlights include the 3D bronze sculpture of Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ by Rob and Nick Carter, where the viewing experience of the artwork is renewed (and given another dimension, if the pun is forgiven), Anna Von Freyburg’s gloriously coloured textile interpretation of a Dutch still life painting, Vivienne Westwood’s sensational floral costumes and Ann Carrington’s collection of finds in silver and cutlery for her shining and awe inpiring sculptures of remodification and metamorphosis.
What the exhibition succeeds in doing well is to sting the monkey of the mind so that she flickers across the branches of the canopy, forever at all moments looking for new paths of exploration and into new thoughts. There is so much beauty, so much food for thought.
What struck me in particular was the constant oscillation and the influence of the flower on the female body and the female body on the flowers. And how this dynamic has been woven into art and culture. Women have been understood as flowers, however we may interpret that equation. The exhibition suggests that works such as Mucha’s ‘La Rose’ give the woman flower the aura of power, the transcendence of a domestic role. In Gary Hume’s ‘Two Blooms, Grey Fields’, we are advised to see human faces in the flowers, a coupling of minds.
Another theme that emerged was the relationship between violence and the flowers. Sometimes, ‘flower power’ was an antidote to the oppressive state and the military as we see in photographs, such as Bernie Boston’s image of George Harris sticking carnations into gun barrels during the demonstrations against the Vietnamese war in 1967. In Wole Lagunju’s reinterpretation of the violence of ‘Judith with the Head of Holofernes’, we see flowers from the cultural iconography of the Yoruba which invigorates a postcolonial approach to real history.
As with all subjects of art, it was interesting to see the pull between the abstract representations of flowers, such as Damien Hirst’s ‘Valium’ and the figurative brilliances of art such as Janet Pulcho’s ‘The Dream of Love’ which was painted last year.
To end the exhibition on emerging voices was infinitely pleasing. A demonstration that the fascination with the flower and its beauty drives contemporary art and will be the future for art for time to come.
Immensely enjoyable and productive for a creative mind, ‘Flowers’ at the Saatchi Gallery is a big and delicious fish to have caught and to feast upon. I spent three hours in each of the spaces hoovering everything up. Beautiful variety, stylish presentation of the pieces, the experience was like an entry in the kaleidoscope of the senses. I learnt much, I contemplated much, I hungered much for the beauty of some of the pieces. My overall impression was of a shining, irresistibly coloured flower which emerges from the dark to cast its wonder upon a world of hearts.
Photographs reproduced by permission from the exhibition curator for my personal blog which is non-commercial and written with ‘fair use’ for academic comment and analysis. I will remove any photographs if there is any issues and there has been any misunderstanding.
One of my favourite Hindi songs says that love is expressed by adorning a flower in a love letter. It is what the writer (the lyricist) says because he writes to the woman that he loves. Here, we have a book with a flower inside it. Of course, fairy tales come to us mostly in books now that the oral tradition is dead. One of the themes of this book series by the artist is supposed to be the ‘journey inward’. Following the Protestant Revolution in reading, a journey into a book is a journey inward, as you try to understand yourself through the reading, to arrive at a distant truth. But is the destination the flower? Perhaps for some. And then, what does the flower represent? Or, more to the point, what does the flower not represent? For me, the flower will always be Woman. And Sex. Or, to put it in symbolic terms, connection. Which leads to reproduction. This is the destination at the ultimate aim of the journey inward. The Flowering of the Mind.
The nymph in the fairy tale, the artist says, is the subject of transformation, someone that can be anyone, and influence the natural world around them. This painting is about the power of transformation. Is the context the global nightmare that is human induced climate change? Is the hope in transformation about this? There are red scribbles on the woman’s body. Is this blood? Is she hurt? Will transformation heal her and the planet? The painting is across two screens and cut in half. There is violence at the heart of this image.
The fear of death: the brief glance at death’s feet as he slides down a chimney to kill an old married couple from the Polish fairy tale. Unseen death covered over and disguised in a structure of disavowal – we conceal the reality of death because it is too traumatic when we are grieving, like the reader will grieve the violent endings of these fairy tales. A traumatic illustration that has followed the artist around since he was a child. Accompanied by the book that has had pages torn out from it and sutured to the chimney which is made out of paper – the stuff of trauma.
Sanem Özdemir ‘Evvel zaman içinde, kalbur saman içinde /Once upon a time, in a griddle of straw’ (2024)
A testament to the strong women in fairy tales. And woman as beginning, since the title of the painting is about the traditional Turkish beginning of the story. Woman is beginning because she is the origin of life. Woman is beginning because she is the one that teaches us to look, talk, she is the one that writes our destiny in life. The beginning is woman and the ending is woman. In Western culture, this is recognised in the palindrome: the words for the mother begin and end in the same letter: mum, mom, ma’am, madam.
The woman is by the water. The beginning of the land? The beginning of life in the water for all life on this planet?
A comment upon the ubiquity of the female saviour and their self sacrifice in fairy tales – and in life.
The egg at the bottom perhaps indicates that one of the themes is about female reproduction since women have eggs – that sacrifice for children is written into the biology of women. The idea seems reinforced by the imagery of nature in the piece, with all the trees. But then, the cultural images above the egg suggest that it is a social construct that women should sacrifice to save others (is this paradox?).
A kingly figure is flipped upside down, perhaps to indicate that the collage is an attack upon male ego and patriarchal rule – that which dictates the script.
In speaking, Darico told me that feminism has changed the way that we look at the world and fairy tales.
This is a reinterpretation of a painting which reinterprets an opera which reinterprets a story about magic and love – the fairy tale animal princess that gives love and bestows presents:
As a reinterpretation of a reinterpretation of reinterpretation, this is about the influence of fairy tales and the games of Chinese whispers that they create to forge the identities of readers, artists, opera writers and photographers.
The work is for a charity which supports Downs Syndrome, which the muse has, and some of the proceeds from the work will go to a theatre for those with the syndrome. So the whole thing is about the creation of culture from culture from culture – the never ending cycle of stories with stories within stories, copies of copies of copies.
Did you know that Down’s Syndrome comes from an extra copy of chromosome 21? Did the photographer know this? If so, then the work is about copies and their creation of differences, at the level of images, stories and even at the bodily level.
Katia Kesic ‘Affirmation 5. Take the courage to be seen’ (2022)
The fragmented hand that holds up the mirror to us. We look inside it. We are seen – but by ourselves. This is perhaps supposed to be looking at ourselves honestly in the mirror, having the courage to do so. But, perhaps, at the same time, it is about the courage of being seen as an artist – someone that holds up a mirror to the world – with the artist’s hand which creates the work. There is no disconnection – the artist shows us who we are.
A representation of fear as distorted body, darkness, abstraction, the vague, the indistinct, the blurred. The photography captures the fear in time as a product of time – so there is motion blur. Why the time? Because fear passes. In a sense, this is a photographic history of fear. Just as the fairy tale is a literary history of fear. There is a parallel though – both are fictions.
Because real fear is when you look at the ugliest things in the whole world in crystal clear photographic fidelity and they are emblazoned on your mind as a scar which keeps you up at night, screaming in your dreams. So these photographs and fairy tales are actually protecting us from the reality and the trauma of fear. The acceptable face of fear which masks.
These Indian women represent the Mahabharata and Indian mythology featuring male gods? Why? The series is called ‘My Head is a Vessel Full of Thoughts’. These women are the artist that has been inspired by Indian culture. And she has become strong, a load carrier as a result. These images are about the strength of Indian culture. But also woman carrying the weight of myths about men, gods and heroes as men.
The mirror that the woman sees her face in, with her back to us seems to be in half the shape of a heart. Is it about a concealed love? Since the partner in the mirror of the heart is absent?
The wounded heart is black. Because it is the black that have been hurt. The heart is cut open and its bleeds – the violence that has been inflicted upon the heart is the violence that has been inflicted upon the love of the black. Instead of love given to us, we are cut to the core by the hate of this society and the ‘lovers’ in it – since they can never love us. The wounded heart is the rejection that we, the black, face.
There is a face with four eyes in symmetry with one another. In India, there is a saying that in love, two eyes become four. We share the gaze with someone. Our perspectives blend into each other. In fact, when you look into the eyes of the woman you love… But this is another story that the woman that you love knows…
“The Arachnids were found on witch’s altars in southern Russia, dating back to the early 18th century. The text includes unpronounceable spells, and the images contain some particles that can be used in the preparation of a love potion”.
In the artwork, we are presented with women’s magic: the magic of love. So the question is, who is this spell meant to make a lover of the artist? Is it us, the viewer? Are we supposed to love the artist witch? And what is the nature of this love – with these unpronounceable spells that only work through writing? A reflection on women’s silence in love – when the men have to do all the talking while the women never move their lips? The lover the artist wants is a secret of silence…
Elena Stashkova ‘Herne’s Golden horns’ (2023)
A representation of the horned god of the European peoples. In gold to suggest that mythology is gold, that the god still has enduring and everlasting value in culture. A comment perhaps on the valuations that we bestow on the gods in mythology. Perhaps an attempt to bring to the earth the imagination, to breathe life into the treasures of story and culture (like Agammenon’s golden death mask at Troy?).
This is ostensibly about death and loss. But if you look at the female figure’s dress, it transforms surreally into a clown’s face with a big bow tie. That is spooky and perhaps relays the idea that tragedy can turn into comedy and comedy into tragedy.
Crying is heavy. We carry it. She is carrying the tears around her neck. And, like a farmer, she appears to water the earth. The tears have faces. She is sowing heads into the ground. Because the head has the brain in it – sadness makes us see reality because reality is sadness. That’s why sadness is the head and the mind. Suffering makes the mind grow.
This is a reflection of pure emotion. But what emotion is it? Red for anger? Red for desire? The big, dilated eyes could be anger or lust. The idea of a ‘bloom’? Emotion as the flower? Lust causes a red blush. Anger makes us see red. Maybe the ambiguity is intentional. A deliberate blurring of distinction. Maybe you have to be a Greek to understand this one.
Lera Dergunova ‘She’ (2024)
Artist statement:
“Flowers have always symbolised significant aspects of human nature, such as life, death, love, passion, and power. My first memory of a flower comes from “Beauty and the Beast”, where I was scared by the Rose losing its petals, symbolising imperfection and lifelessness. Through my work, I aim to help people accept their internal softness and the parts of themselves considered “weak” and “defenceless”. I want to unify opposites and show that their strength lies in acceptance and integration”.
Gaining strength through crotchet, confronting fear and the idea of fragmentation and developing resilience through repetitive patterning and creating a whole which masters trauma and loss.
Alona Rubinstein ‘Metaphorical Cards’ (2023)
Artist Statement
In my metaphorical cards, I strive to offer viewers a unique way to find answers to their inner questions through imagery. These cards, created by hand using mixed techniques, predominantly watercolour, serve as a tool for self-discovery. Each card contains a metaphorical image that can be interpreted based on personal experience and intuition.
Suneels’ Comment is ‘no comment’ – because these ones, the whole point is that you are supposed to look at them and go onto your own journey. I have been on my own journey with these. However, one point. With the embrace, there is one behind that does not embrace. The past is rejection.
“This diptych explores the life and death of a modern Thumbelina. The girl could not withstand the current ecological conditions and was buried in a teapot. In today’s environment, fairy tales are not always possible.”
The idea that current reality kills the fairy tale. The diptych seems to be about the death of romantic love. And therefore the death of everything that is human. Because in the story, Thumbelina falls in love with someone and has a happy ending. The current climate is killing love.
There were many unique characteristics of the RHS Flower Show at Hampton Court which I observed as a novice to the event. The variety of our relationships to plants and flowers in art, culture and food. The friendliness of the people there. The almost overwhelming enthusiasm. One such characteristic was that they had plant porters and also that many of the public that did without the plant porters were struggling with the structures of the plants as they flowed within the spaces. The plant structures – so beautiful to behold and so suitable to evolution and adaptation – seemed particularly unwieldy and cumbersome, and their fragility in transit was worrying. I was particularly surprised that at the very start of the morning, people were buying the plants so that they had to carry them around for the whole event, although I suppose that was so that they could get their first choice.
ss Great Britain Botanist.
It was in this context that I came across the SS Great Britain Wardian Cases Exhibition. I had already seen the Wardian case at Kew Gardens for our volunteer training there, so it was not an unfamiliar sight, and I even knew some of the history behind this construction. The Wardian case is what I would describe as a life box that protects plants in a microclimate where they only need to be watered once during a two-month crossing.
ss Great Britain Botanist.
Something akin to a miniature Victorian glasshouse, although made out of wood, the Wardian case has been described as a revolution in the long distance transportation of plants. Patently, the construction was where the sciences of botany and biology found their sanctuary and spring as the living plants could be studied in Europe rather than grown from seeds in a foreign land. Again, the case allowed the transportation of economically important plants and is thus one of the most significant relics in the history of modern capitalism and global development. One of the most noteworthy connections with Kew gardens is with the exportation of seedlings from our glasshouses to Ceylon and Malaya in the 1870s to begin the rubber plantations. However, Kew Gardens also habitually used Wardian cases to transport plants until 1962.
The display at the RHS Flower show was a preview of the exhibition at the SS Great Britain which is Bristol’s number one visitor attraction. On the ship’s weather deck, six reconstructed Wardian cases are on display for visitors to explore. Each is a replica of the last surviving ship-board example designs which are to be found in the Kew Gardens archive. Based on research from the Brunel Institute, studies of the ship’s cargo manifests, each case is planted with a true-to-life ‘order’. The cases will celebrate the inbound and outbound plant species that the ship transported across the world between 1859 and 1875. The exhibition highlights the role of steamships in the transportation of plants and the making of the modern world.
ss Great Britain Botanist.
Along with the exhibition of the Wardian cases, there is other horticultural interest. There is a botany-themed ‘discovery talk’ and horticultural workshops. A ‘botanist’s cabin’ has also been added to the ship’s museum in which you are to become immersed in the sights, sounds and smells of life onboard – a lived experience and introduction to the important work and research of Victorian botanists and ‘plant hunters’.
ss Great Britain Botanist.
The exhibition at the RHS Flower Show was an exciting and stimulating moment in time travel to a monumental period in the history of plants and in the makings of a globalised world. Looking at those fairly small boxes with such a colossal impact was a message that just a little thought and a few materials can change reality. The resourcefulness and ingenuity of the human mind can reshape everything. As we try to combat the mass extinction event that is threatening all plant life and diversity, the Wardian case stands as a symbol that improvement can be wrought to transform botany, biology, the life sciences – and the future. And the Wardian case is also a symbol of connection across the world through transport. The future is about more connection across cultures through science and study enabled through constructions like the Wardian case. And more connections with Kew Gardens, its science and its archives and knowledge to inspire the understanding of this living planet and the foundations on which it has been built.
Acknowledgements Thank you to the SS Great Britain for allowing me to share the photographs and especially to Emily France there who was so helpful with the research and the permissions.
Review by Dr. Suneel Mehmi on 19.05.2024. (Suneel’s original artwork from 2016).
This is my personal view of the exhibition and does not reflect the view or any consensus at any of the places I work at or volunteer.
For a very long time, Ezen Foundation featured a breath-taking wedding kimono decorated with cranes in its exhibition space. I was absolutely entranced by this wonderful construction of textile and art. I would take a careful look at the kimono every time I went to the gallery. For me, the kimono stood for everything that was beautiful about not just Japanese, but Asian culture. For the kimono was red, like the wedding dress of an Indian woman. The textiles were magical, shiny, seductive, splendid. They spelt out love.
My family comes from those involved in the clothing trade in India and in Britain. My mother’s side are leather merchants. My grandfather’s side were shoe makers. My grandmother worked in textiles when she was invited into this country. My mother made her own Punjabi suits when I was growing up on the sewing machine at home from the sumptuous fabrics she bought from the Indian shops. It has always been interesting to me to look at clothes and, when my grandmother passed away, I am reminded of her through the beautiful clothes that I see around me. She made me shirts and jumpers when I was a child and even when I was an adult. So when I look at these kimonos, I think of my grandmother and my mother, even if they have been made by men. That is the memory
Familiar to even the farthest flung nooks and crannies of the globe, the kimono is synonymous with Japanese culture and style. This exhibition at Ezen Foundation aims to showcase the clothing’s remarkable evolution in the latter half of the nineteenth century alongside the country’s ‘cultural and artistic transformation’.
Print to Pattern displays over 20 antique woodblock prints from kimono pattern books primarily dating from the late 19th century, also known as the Meiji era. The pattern books are fashion catalogues which were used in a multitude of ways by a diverse range of audiences and which feature designs for kimonos, patterns and motifs. The exhibition comes in the form of pictures, curator labels and then QR codes which give us more information about the exhibits.
The exhibition begins by featuring kimono designs of trees and their blossoms as auspicious motifs. A tree loving country is how we know Japan. From the bonsai tree collector Mr Miyagi in The Karate Kid to the equation of everything Japanese with the cherry blossoms, that is how we have imagined and known Japan in the West. We are told how the trees form symbols and meanings, how humans are relating to the natural world by representing it in a system of human meaning. We form the idea of the Japanese as those that communicate through nature, that style themselves through nature. That see human qualities in the plants as well as abstract qualities like transience in the cherry blossoms or adversity in white irises.
There is a sensation of magic in the air because the trees are regarded as auspicious symbols in these designs. We are seeing the aspiration of magic in the flesh, the starvation for sorcery. Magic infiltrates the picture plane, the desire for success to be accomplished, the desire for love. It is a touching human moment.
The exhibition then moves to animals that figure on kimono design such as bats and cranes. As with the natural environment in the form of trees, we find out the meanings of these auspicious creatures and how they have figured in the Japanese imagination. The case of the bats is indicative of the historical contextualisation at work in the exhibition. We learn how the bats went from representations of prosperity to representations of modernity and aspirations for economic growth and social advancement.
Objects as motifs in kimonos now make their way into the gaze. There are bobbins, threads and needles as well as sake cups. Then, there is a print showing the iconic Mount Fuji which has remained ‘a prominent theme in kimono designs’. We learn that the motif has traditionally adorned the kimonos of young boys and has stood for resilience and strength.
We then stand before a wall decorated with floral patterns. Each element repeated into an overall scheme in a sparing, minimalistic aesthetic, with the use of negative space and flat colours to highlight the Japanese emphasis on the idea that what is not there structures the space just as much as what is there.
Other exhibits include wonderfully coloured and striking, intricately designed obi belts and prints which feature women in beautiful kimonos.
Then, finally, we see how the kimono looked on the body and in the social contexts that the women carried themselves in. We are reminded that the kimono was for presenting the body, for presenting subjectivity. There has been a move from the realm of abstract design towards how these designs signified the female form, the concrete lived experience of the Japanese in time.
In my view, Print to Pattern is a good, short introduction to the Japanese aesthetic and kimono design in the Meiji period. I remember that gallery space through the inclusion of that wonderful red wedding kimono dancing with cranes and beauty. And the exhibits of kimono design are beautiful too. Textile design is itself a neglected field in Western art history and the gallery space, so I feel that the exhibit does something to remedy this injustice. With fabrics and clothing, we see how the body relates most intimately to art and the movement of the exhibition has expressed this very well, from abstract design to, concretely, women wearing the kimono designs. There is much food for thought with the arrangement and the research into the symbolism of the things we are seeing. And the exhibition stimulates our curiosity to learn more and to see more kimonos, the crystallisation of skills in cloth-making, dying, design and fashion.
Print to Pattern is organised and curated by Olivia Mieke Maria-Paulina Martha, Wojtek Doria Dernalowicz, and Kalliopi Hadjipateras.
What’s on the Turner Prize shortlist this year in terms of ‘Punjabi’ art? Covered with a giant white doily, a red Ford Escort vehicle is presented to us. The ‘art’ is in front of a photograph of a family with the car.
Rosie Cooper, director of Wysing Arts Centre, who sits on the judging panel, said Kaur sees the vehicle as a “representation of her dad’s first car and his migrant desires” and it “blasted snippets of uplifting pop songs referencing freedom and liberation throughout the space”.
Obviously the artist shortlisted in this country – when they are Indian – would necessarily be female. This is what ‘diversity’ means to white people when it comes to the Subcontinent – the women. Their books, their art, their cinema. It is all celebrated. Because they are heroic ‘victims’ of Indian culture to the West. Us men are to be ignored and marginalised. Because we are the ‘oppressors’ of women in this culture.
And what about this piece which white taste has valued? The big white doily is the key. It covers over the car. The migrant desire – according to the rules of white society – is to be covered over in whiteness. The white doily – the whiteness – is self-consciously patterned and artistic – it is the touch of art in the piece. Otherwise, there would just be a car and a family snapshot. The white doily – the whiteness – is what creates this exhibition as a piece of art work. It is what demonstrates ‘taste’, ‘selection’, artistic ‘discrimination’ (the pun is intended).
And what about this ‘migrant desire’ which – despite the capture of the car in the whiteness that is like a constraining net – blasts songs of freedom and liberation (laughable)? It is ideology at work. The veil of ideology covering over the vision of the car, the white veil over things for the migrant experience. Blinding the eyes and vision. Interfering. Coming between self and object, mind and reality. Art is the white veil itself. What else is? They sing of freedom. When they are the exploited. They sing of liberty. When they are constrained and bound by the white net.
The car. The phallic symbol. Red to signify status and dominance. Gross materialism. Migrant desire is couched as greed. Desire for masculinity in this patriarchal white supremacist society. Desire for control – one drives a car.
Desire for freedom – the car represents freedom. A cliched symbol of freedom the car. But this one is caught up in the net. Even the music – they blast snippets of songs about freedom. Even musically, the freedom is partial, disrupted, interrupted, punctured by purposely oppressive silence.
Do you know what the net signifies in India? The net of maya – illusion. Gross materialism. Trickery. What comes between us and the understanding of reality. The doily is perhaps maya. This white culture and its control, its limitation of freedom for the migrant. The doily becomes kitcsch art – described by several art historians as the artwork of a capitalistic, unthinking and unfeeling, philistine and totalitarian society.
Yet, there is a paradox. If I remember correctly from the Metro newspaper article that I read today about the art piece, the doily also represents the Sikh and Indian workers that worked in textiles factories in huge numbers when they first migrated here to the United Kingdom (Metro 24.04.2024). So this net of whiteness is being created by the migrants themselves. Their deference. Their blind adulation. Their willingness to be exploited. Their inability to revolt against the systems of power.
So what are the migrant desires of the Father in this image? As seen through the eyes of a Punjabi woman? Desire to criticise the wants of the Father? Or an attempt to be sympathetic to his wants?
The artist writes:
‘In this show I am having a conversation with personal histories,’ explains Kaur, ‘exploring improvisation and political mysticism as tools to reimagine tradition and inherited myths.’
But is this a re-imagination? Look at the piece again. It tries to base itself against reality as ideology – against the photograph, the representation of reality. The photograph has the Indian family in it. The base unit of Punjabi and Indian culture. The finished art exhibit has no family in it. It has a relationship merely to the Father in a patriarchal system of culture. A Father that wants to be covered in whiteness. Is this what is valued in this culture? Probably. The probability is on the side that adulates whiteness and patriarchy. The family is forgotten in favour of the Master. In favour of isolation and individualism. In favour of the desire for mastery and control and power.
These are my own personal views of the exhibition and do not represent any of the views at any of the organisations I am working in.
This exhibition is a triumph of energy and imaginative problem solving from the children, the future. It is a reaffirmation of the fact that the human race has always solved any problems that have come into its path and will do so again. That we do not lack inventiveness and ways of thinking around and through things. Even with problems that we have created for ourselves. It is a reaffirmation of optimism in the world and in the future of our children and the species. This world which we have spoilt can be fixed. That is the message of the exhibition.
Six primary schools were set an imaginative task in collaboration with the London Transport Museum – they had to find solutions for the climate change crisis. Aliens had told them that their planet was no longer liveable and they needed to start over again in an environmentally friendly way. The inspiration for their planet-friendly technology was to come from animals and plants.
As I walked around the masses of reclaimed cardboard boxes and lollipop sticks, the resourcefulness of the children was in abundant evidence. These cast away objects had been magically transformed. They had become something again. They had become the visions of the future. The tinkering of the children, with the artistic designs, showed their enviable creativity and collaboration skills.
Inventions were strewn about everywhere like a mad scientist’s frenzied laboratory:
‘The Helpful Bumblebee cleans the air and rubbish. The Earthly trees stop flooding and pollution as well as cleaning the Earth and so prevents coughing and sneezing. The Legendary Pigeon sucks in pollution through its nose.’ (Exhibition Text).
The models for each of the animal inspired inventions were cute and beautiful in their way – the innocent and sweet and simple beauty of children’s art and the infantile imagination.
The young artists and inventors had become curators too, and told us about the most interesting and important facts about the exhibits in the museum. It was beautiful to see what they had learnt and what had inspired them to share.
A nice touch was to show an old poster that imagined the future in London as a skyline with skyscrapers and flying vehicles. The idea that we have always dreamed of a better future for transport, that we have always had dreams which have changed this world that we live in for the better, that allow us to make a fantasy world that we live in in reality. The strength and far seeing sight of our mind’s eye.
This was a beautiful exhibition – full of dynamism, an adventure into a mad scientist’s laboratory. An excursion into possibility and the resilience of the children’s mind that can respond to the death of a world to create new life and new beginnings, to build a world entire, the world of the imagination. The desire for a better world from the innocent that have not been corrupted by dismay and stagnation in the selfishness and greed that is around us. But which rejuvenates itself in animal and plant life, in caring and positive change.
diary of a lone man 