Delighted to announce that Metafleur lead florist Alice McCabe will be training and collaborating with Japanese fencemaker Akihiro Mashimo in September at his studio Nagoaka Meichiku just outside Kyoto.
Living window display sculpted to suit Formroom's stage build which took its cues from linear, brutalist architecture bringing the Joseph collection to life. As part two of their design the display area is softened through our planted ivy and cut British foliage. The ivy is wrapped in soil and moss - kokedama style - for longevity.
2024_ Shortlisted RHS Chelsea Flower Show and RHS Tatton Park
Pleased to announce that Metafleur has been shortlisted for floral installation category for both RHS Chelsea Flower Show and RHS Tatton Park with dried floral work 'Rich Tapestry of Life.'
'Rich Tapestry of Life' is a hanging floral design that weaves together peoples' stories of the countryside with visualised statistics regarding changes to the landscape.
Although it remains an idea, this year feels like a milestone in terms of working out how sponsorship for the Fair works and we also have other exciting RHS news to reveal!
The opportunity and challenge to realise a tapestry of this nature and intricacy awaits....
10.01.24 - 10.03.24 Five by Five, Group Exhibition, Incubator, 2 Chiltern St, Marylebone.
The exhibition features a selection of five established and five emerging artist partnerships. Metafleur lead florist and director Alice McCabe is delighted to have been selected by Georgie Hopton.
Her floral mesh work Flipside Garden_ Summer / Winter is now on show alongside Georgie's work and other artist pairs, Mona Hatoum and Tamara Al- Mashouk, Maggi Hambling and Jelly Green, Abigail Lane and Rebecca Hancock, Ingrid Pollard and Matthew Arthur Williams. For more information visit: www.incubatorart.com
3.12.23 National Trust, Workshop, Evelyn Community Centre, 9 Wotton Rd, Deptford.
Metafleur greatly enjoyed workshop using foliage gathered and gifted by Lewisham Council with Deptford residents in creation of christmas wreaths. Lovely to see local foliage used by local community; sustainable making in action.
For more information about National Trust, visit: Projects in London
21.10.23 Strawberry Hill Flower Festival, Workshop, Strawberry Hill House and Garden.
Lovely couple of workshops hosted with Feel Good Garden and early bird tours of the Strawberry Hill Flower Festival. Their art and gardening workshops are run for various groups in the community including those living with dementia and older people as well as students. It is great to see potentially more vulnerable members of the community who might have mobility issues being priotised and given early access within such a beautiful and ephemeral event.
With enormous thanks to Claire at Plant Passion who provided the beautiful dried Surrey grown flowers to nestle into the Kent hops and Leigh Chappell, Janne Ford and Char Johnston who curated the Festival. Find out more here: Strawberry Hill Flower Festival 2023
5.06.23 United for Nature Petition, World Environment Day
Metafleur is delighted to create Floral Crowns from dried Surrey grown flowers for Zero Hour, Climate and Ecology Bill campaigners who presented their #unitedfornature petition at No.10.
Follow them and their work with origami protest by paper artist Tina Luo who has developed instructions for making some of the UK's most endangered species including: the common nightingale, the red helleborine and the Northern pool frog. They invite you to get crafty and send these species along with a note asking your MP to back the Climate and Ecology Bill.
For more information about the Climate and Ecology Bill, check out: www.zerohour.uk
19.05.23 - 4.06.23 Trace Exhibition, OmVed Gardens, 1 Townsend Yard, Highgate.
Metafleur is thrilled to be part of Trace; an exhibition and events programme curated for The Chelsea Fringe in collaboration with specialist craft gallery Thrown Contemporary and OmVed Gardens.
For this fourth collaboration Metafleur will be working exclusively with materials found onsite to bind the exhibition contents and Omved gardens further in exhibition Trace. This curated exhibition of 12 distinctive collections aims to explore the marks we make, physical imprints and expressive gestures alongside thoughts about heritage, influence and our ecological footprint.
Drop in workshop with director Alice McCabe looking and tracing garden and exhibition content via small floral interventions on Sunday 28th May, from 11am - 1pm.
For more information about the exhibition Trace or to sign up for the workshop: Slow Sundays Eventbrite workshop
03.04.23 Blossoming Spring Portal on Blackfriars Bridge
Commissioned by Govia Thameslink Railway to create an installation that highlights the bio-diversity of Railway Gardens and deliberate eco-decision to leave some areas overgrown for wildlife with plants such as nettles, dandelions and brambles. A model train station bug hotel and railway acts as another habitat for extended living network.
As many of these plants are not commercially available, they have been foraged with permission from local parks and associated Railway and Community Gardens. Big thanks to Ringway Community Centre, Crofton Park Railway Garden, Burgess Park, Ruskin Park and Lambeth Council.
For more information about the project which was also featured on BBC London News please see: Evening Standard
23.09.22 - 25.09.22 Strawberry Hill Flower Festival
An annual festival curated by Leigh Chappell and Janne Ford showcasing the very best of British grown flowers and sustainable flower arranging techniques in partnership with Flowers from the Farm.
Scorched Floral Firescreen was created as a response to the extreme heat of Summer 2022. Although clearly not a functional design, the materials it contains have been well and truly tested. It is made with dried grasses and flowers from Flowers from the Farm growers Char Johnston and dried dahlias from Philippa Stewart.
For more information please visit: Strawberry Hill Flower Festival
09.07.22 RHS Flower School Demonstration
Delighted to be asked by Flowers from the Farm - a supportive network of British Flower growers and florists wishing to work with seasonal flowers and sustainable practices - to give a demonstration at their RHS Flower School at the RHS Hampton Court Palace and Garden Show.
All flowers used in the school were to be grown no further than a thirty mile radius away and I was partnered up with Claire at Plant Passion; a Flower Farm just outside of Guildford.
For more information about the work of Royal Horticultural Society please visit: www.rhs.org.uk
09.07.22 - 10.07.22 The Visor
Collaborative exhibition with Lieneke, a Dutch RHS Gold Medallist florist who kindly extended invitation to exhibit a floral artwork in her garden alongside her own work. Lieneke and Victor opened their garden Cae Rhydau, Caernafon, North West Wales for the first time this Summer as part of the National Garden Open Scheme.
The visor shape acts as a starting point for reflecting on how we have a blinkered view of the landscape according to what we know of it, whilst simultaneously providing a viewpoint to look at the landscape from and opportunity to look at the tool of our own blinkeredness, which hopefully expands the vision.
For more information about their garden please visit: Cae Rhydau
13.05.22 - 29.05.22 The Wild Collective
Collaborative exhibition with specialist craft gallery, Thrown and garden and sustainable food and education space OmVed Gardens, taking place in their gardens and greenhouse in Highgate.
This is our third collaboration together for The Chelsea Fringe, with artworks assembled from around the world via an open Call from Thrown.
Expanding the exhibition content and encouraging new ways of looking and participating in the exhibition there will be a host of activities including talks, supper clubs, poetry, dance and musical gatherings. It is my pleasure to have been organising performances on the 25 / 26 / 27th May as part of the Events programme and to host a floral crown making workshop on the 14th.
For more information and to book events visit: www.wild-collective.com #wildcollectivechelseafringe
10.02.22 Eros (or Anteros) Fountain, Piccadilly Circus
BBC Green Planet: Living woodland display
Delightful commission from The Crown Estate wrapping a green living woodland themed installation around Eros, Grade I listed monument in Piccadilly Circus as part of launch of Green Planet AR experience, powered by EE 5G.
SIr David Attenborough appeared on the big screens of Piccadilly filling them up with a verdant display whilst people were invited to take the plants from the living fountain display home and continue the planting and greening extension. As the installation was only temporary remaining plants have been donated to Bankside Open Spaces Trust for re-distribution and further community planting.
Read more about the installation at _ BBC Media Centre.
17.05–21.05.21 Spitalfields Market
Zipcar X Metafleur
Fabulous commission from Manifest London PR to create a living car of flowers to be parked at Spitalfield's Market drawing our attention to Zipcar's campaign promoting green transport; both reducing car ownership and increasing car sharing to create greener streets and future for our cities. The car was created on a repurposed wooden frame before being built up in moss and cupressus foliage, a natural yearlong (evergreen) air purifier. It was packed with over 500 plants which were disbanded to local school and Peer Gallery Gardens.
Featured on Marie Claire weekly hotlist _ 11/30
14.03–28.03.21
EXHIBITION COMMISSION Blind Horizon or Bookmark found in "The Word for World is Forest" at Window135
Blind Horizon or Bookmark found in The Word for World is Forest” is a large hanging work composed of mesh, Venetian blind slats, dried dahlias, Swiss milk bottle tops and small squares of mirror. The starting point for this work was trying to envisage the loss to our collective imagination via mass extinction, which, being completely unable to visualise and slightly overwhelmed by a sense of earnestness, initiated a turn to natural world references and symbolism.
The cut- out blind form is inspired by an ocean sunset and the sense of the sun’s rays hitting the water. Two maquettes of the work (made from re-purposed diary and see – through ribbon) are attached to the piece that went through many different forms. These included a double or reversed sunset, which look like an i and ! next to each other, which felt like a fitting reference to our view and use of the planet.
For more information please visit Window135
27.02–28.03.21
EXHIBITION COMMISSION Fieldwork I at Ken Space
Fieldwork I is a reflection of an internal landscape and started off with a rough sketch imagining the five seasonal elements wood, fire, earth, metal and air of chi kung practice flowing into a central void. As the work developed via the intuitive drawing of lines with millet and heather the concept behind the work expanded rooting itself in the philosophy of natural farmer Masanobu Fukuoka who advocated for observation and experiments in farming over intellectual knowledge. This piece aims at capturing this inquisitiveness whilst also encouraging exploration of our individual nature and collective responsibility towards our environment.
12.11–23.01.21
Merry - Go - Round WINTER EXHIBITION at JGM Gallery
This year Metafleur is collaborating exclusively with JGM Gallery, creating an everlasting series of Christmas wares, which can be borught out every year. There are three spruce designs to choose from, each with a heavy helping of eucalyptus, alongside one dried sculptural wreath, ring table stand and dried freestanding flowers.
Smaller version of "Fieldworks," the hanging floral tapestries first developed for Glasscloud Gallery can be viewed in the JGM Group Exhibition. These "Flipside Gardens" act as learning utensils for the artist uniting and using the cut flower installation world to envisage the growing seasons of Gardens, and enjoy a sense of long and forward thinking that garden design brings and a sense of shifting perspectives which is so valauble in 2020.
Metafleur Xmas Wreath "Eucalyptus Harvest" featured in The Arts Newspaper Christmas Wish List
27.02–28.03.21
EXHIBITION COMMISSION Fieldwork I at Ken Space
Fieldwork I is a reflection of an internal landscape and started off with a rough sketch imagining the five seasonal elements wood, fire, earth, metal and air of chi kung practice flowing into a central void. As the work developed via the intuitive drawing of lines with millet and heather the concept behind the work expanded rooting itself in the philosophy of natural farmer Masanobu Fukuoka who advocated for observation and experiments in farming over intellectual knowledge. This piece aims at capturing this inquisitiveness whilst also encouraging exploration of our individual nature and collective responsibility towards our environment.
16.05–26.07.20
EXHIBITION COMMISSION
A collaboration by OmVed Gardens, Thrown and Metafleur, Gatherers was originally formed as part of the Chelsea Fringe Festival and with lockdown restrictions halting plans, the exhibition was re-thought for the digital sphere, presented through Virtual Reality, online workshops, film and photographs.
Using the medium of ceramics as a starting point, the exhibition includes wild clay projects that stretch from Tambourine Mountain, Australia, right back to OmVed Gardens itself.
The ceramic work and exhibition content is further expanded by foraged floral displays from Metafleur. These include an intertwined collaborative wild garden installation by Metafleur’s founder Alice McCabe and ceramicist Zuleika Melluish on the central stage. With Alice’s usual suppliers suspended, Metafleur uses solely flowers dried from previous events together with materials from friends offcuts and materials.
08.06
VIDEO COMMISSION _ National Maritime Museum_ World Oceans' Day
The circumpolar current is responsible for keeping Antarctica cool – it is also a part of a larger network of ocean currents that regulate the planet’s climate and deliver nutrients to all marine life.
In this special demonstration of chi kung, Antarctica is represented as a bouquet, with hands removing and swirling the stems in movements associated with restoring equilibrium in chi kung. The stems, made using foraged dried alliums, peel on and off in addition / subtraction of ice due to hot and cold currents. The crossed stems of the bouquet are the central focus to suggest balance both above and under the waterline, and the functioning relationship between both.
I hope the work makes you question scale and balance – how our own realigning can hopefully be reflected in larger systems throughout the world which we must respond to collectively in order to re-address the harmony.
Alice McCabe - Metafleur
https://www.rmg.co.uk/see-do/exhibitions-events/world-oceans-day-2020/antarctica-crafts
08.2019
PHOTO COMMISSION _ collaboration with photographer Sebastian Boetcher
"Closing the Borders opened the Gates of Hell" is inspired by the many levels of purgatory in Dante's Inferno and created as a response to political events for a private commission. Red hot poker flowers alongside the vibrant firecracker morph between the balls of fire of the protea heads, all linked by the licking flames of the orange and yellow stained ruscus foliage. Everything is bent out of shape in this double hanging arrangement, somewhat reminiscent of a figure of eight and infinity symbol, suggesting everlasting entrapment.
Delighted to announce that Metafleur lead florist Alice McCabe will be training and collaborating with Japanese fencemaker Akihiro Mashimo in September at his studio Nagoaka Meichiku just outside Kyoto.
Living window display sculpted to suit Formroom's stage build which took its cues from linear, brutalist architecture bringing the Joseph collection to life. As part two of their design the display area is softened through our planted ivy and cut British foliage. The ivy is wrapped in soil and moss - kokedama style - for longevity.
2024_ Shortlisted RHS Chelsea Flower Show and RHS Tatton Park
Pleased to announce that Metafleur has been shortlisted for floral installation category for both RHS Chelsea Flower Show and RHS Tatton Park with dried floral work 'Rich Tapestry of Life.'
'Rich Tapestry of Life' is a hanging floral design that weaves together peoples' stories of the countryside with visualised statistics regarding changes to the landscape.
Although it remains an idea, this year feels like a milestone in terms of working out how sponsorship for the Fair works and we also have other exciting RHS news to reveal!
The opportunity and challenge to realise a tapestry of this nature and intricacy awaits....
10.01.24 - 10.03.24 Five by Five, Group Exhibition, Incubator, 2 Chiltern St, Marylebone.
The exhibition features a selection of five established and five emerging artist partnerships. Metafleur lead florist and director Alice McCabe is delighted to have been selected by Georgie Hopton.
Her floral mesh work Flipside Garden_ Summer / Winter is now on show alongside Georgie's work and other artist pairs, Mona Hatoum and Tamara Al- Mashouk, Maggi Hambling and Jelly Green, Abigail Lane and Rebecca Hancock, Ingrid Pollard and Matthew Arthur Williams. For more information visit: www.incubatorart.com
3.12.23 National Trust, Workshop, Evelyn Community Centre, 9 Wotton Rd, Deptford.
Metafleur greatly enjoyed workshop using foliage gathered and gifted by Lewisham Council with Deptford residents in creation of christmas wreaths. Lovely to see local foliage used by local community; sustainable making in action.
For more information about National Trust, visit: Projects in London
21.10.23 Strawberry Hill Flower Festival, Workshop, Strawberry Hill House and Garden.
Lovely couple of workshops hosted with Feel Good Garden and early bird tours of the Strawberry Hill Flower Festival. Their art and gardening workshops are run for various groups in the community including those living with dementia and older people as well as students. It is great to see potentially more vulnerable members of the community who might have mobility issues being priotised and given early access within such a beautiful and ephemeral event.
With enormous thanks to Claire at Plant Passion who provided the beautiful dried Surrey grown flowers to nestle into the Kent hops and Leigh Chappell, Janne Ford and Char Johnston who curated the Festival. Find out more here: Strawberry Hill Flower Festival 2023
5.06.23 United for Nature Petition, World Environment Day
Metafleur is delighted to create Floral Crowns from dried Surrey grown flowers for Zero Hour, Climate and Ecology Bill campaigners who presented their #unitedfornature petition at No.10.
Follow them and their work with origami protest by paper artist Tina Luo who has developed instructions for making some of the UK's most endangered species including: the common nightingale, the red helleborine and the Northern pool frog. They invite you to get crafty and send these species along with a note asking your MP to back the Climate and Ecology Bill.
For more information about the Climate and Ecology Bill, check out: www.zerohour.uk
19.05.23 - 4.06.23 Trace Exhibition, OmVed Gardens, 1 Townsend Yard, Highgate.
Metafleur is thrilled to be part of Trace; an exhibition and events programme curated for The Chelsea Fringe in collaboration with specialist craft gallery Thrown Contemporary and OmVed Gardens.
For this fourth collaboration Metafleur will be working exclusively with materials found onsite to bind the exhibition contents and Omved gardens further in exhibition Trace. This curated exhibition of 12 distinctive collections aims to explore the marks we make, physical imprints and expressive gestures alongside thoughts about heritage, influence and our ecological footprint.
Drop in workshop with director Alice McCabe looking and tracing garden and exhibition content via small floral interventions on Sunday 28th May, from 11am - 1pm.
For more information about the exhibition Trace or to sign up for the workshop: Slow Sundays Eventbrite workshop
03.04.23 Blossoming Spring Portal on Blackfriars Bridge
Commissioned by Govia Thameslink Railway to create an installation that highlights the bio-diversity of Railway Gardens and deliberate eco-decision to leave some areas overgrown for wildlife with plants such as nettles, dandelions and brambles. A model train station bug hotel and railway acts as another habitat for extended living network.
As many of these plants are not commercially available, they have been foraged with permission from local parks and associated Railway and Community Gardens. Big thanks to Ringway Community Centre, Crofton Park Railway Garden, Burgess Park, Ruskin Park and Lambeth Council.
For more information about the project which was also featured on BBC London News please see: Evening Standard
23.09.22 - 25.09.22 Strawberry Hill Flower Festival
An annual festival curated by Leigh Chappell and Janne Ford showcasing the very best of British grown flowers and sustainable flower arranging techniques in partnership with Flowers from the Farm.
Scorched Floral Firescreen was created as a response to the extreme heat of Summer 2022. Although clearly not a functional design, the materials it contains have been well and truly tested. It is made with dried grasses and flowers from Flowers from the Farm growers Char Johnston and dried dahlias from Philippa Stewart.
For more information please visit: Strawberry Hill Flower Festival
09.07.22 RHS Flower School Demonstration
Delighted to be asked by Flowers from the Farm - a supportive network of British Flower growers and florists wishing to work with seasonal flowers and sustainable practices - to give a demonstration at their RHS Flower School at the RHS Hampton Court Palace and Garden Show.
All flowers used in the school were to be grown no further than a thirty mile radius away and I was partnered up with Claire at Plant Passion; a Flower Farm just outside of Guildford.
For more information about the work of Royal Horticultural Society please visit: www.rhs.org.uk
09.07.22 - 10.07.22 The Visor
Collaborative exhibition with Lieneke, a Dutch RHS Gold Medallist florist who kindly extended invitation to exhibit a floral artwork in her garden alongside her own work. Lieneke and Victor opened their garden Cae Rhydau, Caernafon, North West Wales for the first time this Summer as part of the National Garden Open Scheme.
The visor shape acts as a starting point for reflecting on how we have a blinkered view of the landscape according to what we know of it, whilst simultaneously providing a viewpoint to look at the landscape from and opportunity to look at the tool of our own blinkeredness, which hopefully expands the vision.
For more information about their garden please visit: Cae Rhydau
13.05.22 - 29.05.22 The Wild Collective
Collaborative exhibition with specialist craft gallery, Thrown and garden and sustainable food and education space OmVed Gardens, taking place in their gardens and greenhouse in Highgate.
This is our third collaboration together for The Chelsea Fringe, with artworks assembled from around the world via an open Call from Thrown.
Expanding the exhibition content and encouraging new ways of looking and participating in the exhibition there will be a host of activities including talks, supper clubs, poetry, dance and musical gatherings. It is my pleasure to have been organising performances on the 25 / 26 / 27th May as part of the Events programme and to host a floral crown making workshop on the 14th.
For more information and to book events visit: www.wild-collective.com #wildcollectivechelseafringe
10.02.22 Eros (or Anteros) Fountain, Piccadilly Circus
BBC Green Planet: Living woodland display
Delightful commission from The Crown Estate wrapping a green living woodland themed installation around Eros, Grade I listed monument in Piccadilly Circus as part of launch of Green Planet AR experience, powered by EE 5G.
SIr David Attenborough appeared on the big screens of Piccadilly filling them up with a verdant display whilst people were invited to take the plants from the living fountain display home and continue the planting and greening extension. As the installation was only temporary remaining plants have been donated to Bankside Open Spaces Trust for re-distribution and further community planting.
Read more about the installation at _ BBC Media Centre.
17.05–21.05.21 Spitalfields Market
Zipcar X Metafleur
Fabulous commission from Manifest London PR to create a living car of flowers to be parked at Spitalfield's Market drawing our attention to Zipcar's campaign promoting green transport; both reducing car ownership and increasing car sharing to create greener streets and future for our cities. The car was created on a repurposed wooden frame before being built up in moss and cupressus foliage, a natural yearlong (evergreen) air purifier. It was packed with over 500 plants which were disbanded to local school and Peer Gallery Gardens.
Featured on Marie Claire weekly hotlist _ 11/30
14.03–28.03.21
EXHIBITION COMMISSION Blind Horizon or Bookmark found in "The Word for World is Forest" at Window135
Blind Horizon or Bookmark found in The Word for World is Forest” is a large hanging work composed of mesh, Venetian blind slats, dried dahlias, Swiss milk bottle tops and small squares of mirror. The starting point for this work was trying to envisage the loss to our collective imagination via mass extinction, which, being completely unable to visualise and slightly overwhelmed by a sense of earnestness, initiated a turn to natural world references and symbolism.
The cut- out blind form is inspired by an ocean sunset and the sense of the sun’s rays hitting the water. Two maquettes of the work (made from re-purposed diary and see – through ribbon) are attached to the piece that went through many different forms. These included a double or reversed sunset, which look like an i and ! next to each other, which felt like a fitting reference to our view and use of the planet.
For more information please visit Window135
27.02–28.03.21
EXHIBITION COMMISSION Fieldwork I at Ken Space
Fieldwork I is a reflection of an internal landscape and started off with a rough sketch imagining the five seasonal elements wood, fire, earth, metal and air of chi kung practice flowing into a central void. As the work developed via the intuitive drawing of lines with millet and heather the concept behind the work expanded rooting itself in the philosophy of natural farmer Masanobu Fukuoka who advocated for observation and experiments in farming over intellectual knowledge. This piece aims at capturing this inquisitiveness whilst also encouraging exploration of our individual nature and collective responsibility towards our environment.
12.11–23.01.21
Merry - Go - Round WINTER EXHIBITION at JGM Gallery
This year Metafleur is collaborating exclusively with JGM Gallery, creating an everlasting series of Christmas wares, which can be borught out every year. There are three spruce designs to choose from, each with a heavy helping of eucalyptus, alongside one dried sculptural wreath, ring table stand and dried freestanding flowers.
Smaller version of "Fieldworks," the hanging floral tapestries first developed for Glasscloud Gallery can be viewed in the JGM Group Exhibition. These "Flipside Gardens" act as learning utensils for the artist uniting and using the cut flower installation world to envisage the growing seasons of Gardens, and enjoy a sense of long and forward thinking that garden design brings and a sense of shifting perspectives which is so valauble in 2020.
Metafleur Xmas Wreath "Eucalyptus Harvest" featured in The Arts Newspaper Christmas Wish List
27.02–28.03.21
EXHIBITION COMMISSION Fieldwork I at Ken Space
Fieldwork I is a reflection of an internal landscape and started off with a rough sketch imagining the five seasonal elements wood, fire, earth, metal and air of chi kung practice flowing into a central void. As the work developed via the intuitive drawing of lines with millet and heather the concept behind the work expanded rooting itself in the philosophy of natural farmer Masanobu Fukuoka who advocated for observation and experiments in farming over intellectual knowledge. This piece aims at capturing this inquisitiveness whilst also encouraging exploration of our individual nature and collective responsibility towards our environment.
16.05–26.07.20
EXHIBITION COMMISSION
A collaboration by OmVed Gardens, Thrown and Metafleur, Gatherers was originally formed as part of the Chelsea Fringe Festival and with lockdown restrictions halting plans, the exhibition was re-thought for the digital sphere, presented through Virtual Reality, online workshops, film and photographs.
Using the medium of ceramics as a starting point, the exhibition includes wild clay projects that stretch from Tambourine Mountain, Australia, right back to OmVed Gardens itself.
The ceramic work and exhibition content is further expanded by foraged floral displays from Metafleur. These include an intertwined collaborative wild garden installation by Metafleur’s founder Alice McCabe and ceramicist Zuleika Melluish on the central stage. With Alice’s usual suppliers suspended, Metafleur uses solely flowers dried from previous events together with materials from friends offcuts and materials.
08.06
VIDEO COMMISSION _ National Maritime Museum_ World Oceans' Day
The circumpolar current is responsible for keeping Antarctica cool – it is also a part of a larger network of ocean currents that regulate the planet’s climate and deliver nutrients to all marine life.
In this special demonstration of chi kung, Antarctica is represented as a bouquet, with hands removing and swirling the stems in movements associated with restoring equilibrium in chi kung. The stems, made using foraged dried alliums, peel on and off in addition / subtraction of ice due to hot and cold currents. The crossed stems of the bouquet are the central focus to suggest balance both above and under the waterline, and the functioning relationship between both.
I hope the work makes you question scale and balance – how our own realigning can hopefully be reflected in larger systems throughout the world which we must respond to collectively in order to re-address the harmony.
Alice McCabe - Metafleur
https://www.rmg.co.uk/see-do/exhibitions-events/world-oceans-day-2020/antarctica-crafts
08.2019
PHOTO COMMISSION _ collaboration with photographer Sebastian Boetcher
"Closing the Borders opened the Gates of Hell" is inspired by the many levels of purgatory in Dante's Inferno and created as a response to political events for a private commission. Red hot poker flowers alongside the vibrant firecracker morph between the balls of fire of the protea heads, all linked by the licking flames of the orange and yellow stained ruscus foliage. Everything is bent out of shape in this double hanging arrangement, somewhat reminiscent of a figure of eight and infinity symbol, suggesting everlasting entrapment.
METAFLEUR
Unit 5 Burgess Business Park
Parkhouse Street
London SE5 7TJ
CONTACT
studio@metafleur.com
020 7101 4158
METAFLEUR
Unit 5 Burgess Business Park
Parkhouse Street
London SE5 7TJ