Meadow Magic
It may not have been much of a summer so far, but the delights of a wildflower meadow summon up the best of a British summer. Wildflower meadows however are under threat; current estimations are that only 1% of species-rich meadows survive in active management and are being lost at a disturbing rate. At Wakehurst, the home of the Millennium Seedbank and a part of Kew Gardens set on 535 acres of the High Weald in Sussex, they are seeking to draw attention to this phenomenon. Their project Meadowland, all set in Wakehurst's biodiverse meadows, shows the work of 4 groups of artists who have responded to Wakehurst's brief to alert visitors to the delights of what is being lost and the threats that menace them. 2 of the 4 responses are based on textile.
The Wings Flutter, Grasslands are Alive by artist Saroj Patel is a shrine to the pollinators and plants of the meadows - an installation of over 700 hand sewn flags made of sari material. They are arranged in 5 different gateways, fluttering between wooden poles, summoning up the feel of Torana, the free standing ornamental gateways, traditionally a feature of Buddhist temples, believed to bring good fortune and positive energy.
Image above: The Wings Flutter, Grasslands Are Alive by Saroj Patel, Jim Holden © RBG Kew.
Saroj Patel, originally from Preston, Lancashire and now living in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, acknowledges that influence. It stems from childhood visits to Sagra a village in Gujarat, her family’s ancestral home. “We would walk through very long grass, wander through the fields, meadows and trees to a shrine that was surrounded by nature. The walk to this shrine was just as beautiful and magical as the shrine and setting around. The birds, animals and insects that were around were incredibly fascinating and I really felt connected to the environment.” She hopes her project will connect visitors to the environment of Wakehurst.
Each gateway is hung with bells of different metals that traditionally symbolise the elements and connect with resonances in the body to heighten the experience of the moment. The brightly coloured and patterned flags are a direct reference to Buddhist prayer flags, symbolising the elements; air, fire, water, earth and space. “They are normally placed high above the roof so that they can flutter in the wind and emit positive spiritual vibrations,” says Patel. “For me, the flags also connect with the fluttering of moth and butterfly wings, the movement and the catching of colour. It also highlights the wind through sound and movement which is really important within the work.”
Image: Meadow Shadow by Tord Boontje, Jim Holden © RBG Kew.
The colours and block-printed patterns represent the importance that both play in the lives of moths, butterflies, and Lepidoptera (Species of moths and butterflies). Colour and pattern are important for pollination, as well as in courting, sparring, mating and hiding. The block patterns are taken from markings on the insects’ wings. In addition, there are intertwined and knotted saris tied onto the gateposts, symbolising the intricacy and interconnectedness of biodiversity. Patel had always been intrigued by the saris that her mother kept stored under the bed, so for this project, she bought second-hand ones – all of which retained the smells of their previous owners and their homes representing the stories of women who wore them.
The installation is a large one and draws the eye up from the bottom of the meadow hillside, up to towards the trees at the top of the field. “This artwork has changed my perception, “says Iain Parkinson, Wakehurst's head of landscape and horticulture. “The fluttering flags respond to the winds that swirl up the valley. That is important, as the winds here can be devastating. We lost 20,000 trees in the storm of 1987.”
Parkinson has been very involved in responding to the artworks. He chose the plants around Meadow Shadow, by Tord Boontje, a group of 6 highly coloured woven chairs, whose strange shapes echo the proboscises of some butterflies. Boontje has recoloured his Shadowy Chairs from the Moroso M'Afrique collection (2009) and also created a range of cushions based on research by scientists at Kew looking at what colours attract the greatest diversity of pollinators. The chairs are an invitation to sit and contemplate the beauty of the meadows and the wildlife they support.
The chairs, made in Senegal by weavers who traditionally made fishing nets, have metal frames, on which the weavers first set up the warps (horizontal yarns) on the metal frame first (the warp), and then weave the wefts (vertical yarns,) through. “Unlike weaving on a loom, which creates a two dimensional surface, by starting with these frames, the weaving creates a three-dimensional surface. I designed a pattern which uses the twill weave to create horizontal bands of colour with diagonal stripes,” says Tord Boontje.” For me, one of the best aspects of this process is that you can create a double curved surface.”
Picking up on the theme of how colour and pattern attract insects is In Visible Light by filmmakers Heinrich and Palmer. Set in a rather unprepossessing Portakabin is an enjoyable film devised with input from Wakehurst researcher, Janine Griffiths-Lee, that explores a bee’s anatomy and perception, illustrating how they see colour differently from humans and how flowers are coloured and patterned in ways that attract and signpost them to pollen. Voices from the Meadow by Annabel Ross, Alice Boyd and Donnacha Cahill also explains what insects might experience. The musings of a cinnabar moth, meadow grasshopper and a scissor bee, are voiced up by Wakehurst horticulturalists and scientists, accompanied by the sounds of their natural habitat. The stories are entrancing, but instead of being experienced as voices emerging from the grasslands, the insect's habitat, they are relayed from an all too obvious metal sculpture in the form of an old-fashioned wind-up gramophone.
Similarly, Boontje’s chairs would have benefitted from being positioned in the waving grasses and flowers of the meadow, as an unexpected secret retreat. Patel’s installation is fun but could have been more intriguing if visitors moved through the flags rather than experiencing them from below. The paths mown through Wakefield’s landscape offer visitors a sensory environment of grasses and flowers, sadly the projects don’t offer quite the same sensitive experience. Wakehurst is a beautiful environment that highlights what is disappearing from the countryside. Meadowland is a worthwhile project but would benefit from being more subtle in its presentation.
Text by Corinne Julius
Find out more and plan your visit:
www.kew.org/wakehurst/whats-on/meadowland
The Wings Flutter, Grasslands are Alive by artist Saroj Patel is a shrine to the pollinators and plants of the meadows - an installation of over 700 hand sewn flags made of sari material. They are arranged in 5 different gateways, fluttering between wooden poles, summoning up the feel of Torana, the free standing ornamental gateways, traditionally a feature of Buddhist temples, believed to bring good fortune and positive energy.
Saroj Patel, originally from Preston, Lancashire and now living in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, acknowledges that influence. It stems from childhood visits to Sagra a village in Gujarat, her family’s ancestral home. “We would walk through very long grass, wander through the fields, meadows and trees to a shrine that was surrounded by nature. The walk to this shrine was just as beautiful and magical as the shrine and setting around. The birds, animals and insects that were around were incredibly fascinating and I really felt connected to the environment.” She hopes her project will connect visitors to the environment of Wakehurst.
Each gateway is hung with bells of different metals that traditionally symbolise the elements and connect with resonances in the body to heighten the experience of the moment. The brightly coloured and patterned flags are a direct reference to Buddhist prayer flags, symbolising the elements; air, fire, water, earth and space. “They are normally placed high above the roof so that they can flutter in the wind and emit positive spiritual vibrations,” says Patel. “For me, the flags also connect with the fluttering of moth and butterfly wings, the movement and the catching of colour. It also highlights the wind through sound and movement which is really important within the work.”
The colours and block-printed patterns represent the importance that both play in the lives of moths, butterflies, and Lepidoptera (Species of moths and butterflies). Colour and pattern are important for pollination, as well as in courting, sparring, mating and hiding. The block patterns are taken from markings on the insects’ wings. In addition, there are intertwined and knotted saris tied onto the gateposts, symbolising the intricacy and interconnectedness of biodiversity. Patel had always been intrigued by the saris that her mother kept stored under the bed, so for this project, she bought second-hand ones – all of which retained the smells of their previous owners and their homes representing the stories of women who wore them.
The installation is a large one and draws the eye up from the bottom of the meadow hillside, up to towards the trees at the top of the field. “This artwork has changed my perception, “says Iain Parkinson, Wakehurst's head of landscape and horticulture. “The fluttering flags respond to the winds that swirl up the valley. That is important, as the winds here can be devastating. We lost 20,000 trees in the storm of 1987.”
Parkinson has been very involved in responding to the artworks. He chose the plants around Meadow Shadow, by Tord Boontje, a group of 6 highly coloured woven chairs, whose strange shapes echo the proboscises of some butterflies. Boontje has recoloured his Shadowy Chairs from the Moroso M'Afrique collection (2009) and also created a range of cushions based on research by scientists at Kew looking at what colours attract the greatest diversity of pollinators. The chairs are an invitation to sit and contemplate the beauty of the meadows and the wildlife they support.
The chairs, made in Senegal by weavers who traditionally made fishing nets, have metal frames, on which the weavers first set up the warps (horizontal yarns) on the metal frame first (the warp), and then weave the wefts (vertical yarns,) through. “Unlike weaving on a loom, which creates a two dimensional surface, by starting with these frames, the weaving creates a three-dimensional surface. I designed a pattern which uses the twill weave to create horizontal bands of colour with diagonal stripes,” says Tord Boontje.” For me, one of the best aspects of this process is that you can create a double curved surface.”
Picking up on the theme of how colour and pattern attract insects is In Visible Light by filmmakers Heinrich and Palmer. Set in a rather unprepossessing Portakabin is an enjoyable film devised with input from Wakehurst researcher, Janine Griffiths-Lee, that explores a bee’s anatomy and perception, illustrating how they see colour differently from humans and how flowers are coloured and patterned in ways that attract and signpost them to pollen. Voices from the Meadow by Annabel Ross, Alice Boyd and Donnacha Cahill also explains what insects might experience. The musings of a cinnabar moth, meadow grasshopper and a scissor bee, are voiced up by Wakehurst horticulturalists and scientists, accompanied by the sounds of their natural habitat. The stories are entrancing, but instead of being experienced as voices emerging from the grasslands, the insect's habitat, they are relayed from an all too obvious metal sculpture in the form of an old-fashioned wind-up gramophone.
Similarly, Boontje’s chairs would have benefitted from being positioned in the waving grasses and flowers of the meadow, as an unexpected secret retreat. Patel’s installation is fun but could have been more intriguing if visitors moved through the flags rather than experiencing them from below. The paths mown through Wakefield’s landscape offer visitors a sensory environment of grasses and flowers, sadly the projects don’t offer quite the same sensitive experience. Wakehurst is a beautiful environment that highlights what is disappearing from the countryside. Meadowland is a worthwhile project but would benefit from being more subtle in its presentation.
Text by Corinne Julius
Find out more and plan your visit:
www.kew.org/wakehurst/whats-on/meadowland