Floriography series
The Victorian language of flowers:
creative methods for engaging in climate action.
Context
In a time of upheaval, change and increasing eco-anxiety, illustration and community-based practices can be a valuable tool.
Artwork is something almost everyone has within their home, something that is looked upon day after day. But can artwork serve as something more than decoration?
This project sought to investigate how artwork for the home can introduce conversations on the climate. Crucially conversations that go against the bias for negativity and look to the future with hope, optimism and agency.
A lot of people want to take action but feel stuck of how to do so. This project aimed to address these fears and help people move forward to take that next step - however that looks for them.
By facilitating conversation, action and creative play, this work made space for joy, connection and positivity to improve mental health, reduce fear, and promote action.
The concept
I researched floriography, the Victorian language of flowers. While today these meanings are used in isolation for individual flowers, during the height of the era it was used to send complex messages by pairing different flowers together into bouquets.
I developed this concept to create a bouquet for the climate with each flower complementing each other to build a wider picture of climate action.
Each flower was selected to embody the qualities needed in the fight against the climate crisis.
Individually and together these flowers ask us to reflect on whether we need more of these qualities in our lives and how to develop more of it.
Each print comes with an activity card to further prompt reflection and participation.
These activity cards take a design and provide the context of the artwork to allow the audience to be involved in the creative process. If you would like one of these prints for yourself visit the shop!