Over the last few months we have been working closely with Belfast Print Workshop (BPW) to create a huge display of handcrafted paper wildflowers.
They represent species that would have been common in our countryside, such as knapweed, common poppy and yarrow, and demonstrate the beauty and fragility of nature and the need to protect it.
Next week 1,500 of these flowers will be ‘planted’ on the front lawn at Queen’s University Belfast to create a visually stunning display and celebrate 50 years of the RSPB in Northern Ireland.
The creation of this beautiful display has taken a lot of time and effort. The artists involved have had to use a range of innovative techniques, working tirelessly to create a paper meadow full of vibrant colour and movement. We hope that their work inspires you to help give nature a home too.
BPW artist Dónall Billings describes how Paper Meadows was created -
“The Paper Meadows installation is a unique project and a great opportunity for me and my fellow artists from Belfast Print Workshop - Eimear McCann and Anushiya Sundaralingam - to work with RSPB NI and Queens’ University Belfast to create a piece demonstrating the beauty of the natural world, the need to protect it and its role in inspiring art.
Six different coloured paper pulp mixtures and moulds were created to form the six species of flowers to be represented. The paper pulp was beaten in large containers to open the fibres and straw was added to strengthen the mixture as the eco-seeds and dyes were added.
Each paper wildflower was individually sculpted into shape, threaded and woven with wire to enable the stems to sway and move in the wind as they would do in a wildflower meadow.
The challenge was ensuring that the paper wildflowers could resist weathering for the week of the display and still retain their form when distributed to and planted in school gardens. They will subsequently biodegrade, allowing the seeds to grow into a real wildflower meadow.
A number of the dried paper wildflowers were selected to be printed with bees and butterflies using a relief printmaking technique. The surfaces of the relief blocks were individually hand carved and inked up in different colours to represent the buff-tailed bumblebee, the common blue butterfly and the peacock butterfly.
As part of the installation a number of handmade swift and swallow silhouettes have also been made to ‘fly’ over the top of the meadow. They were made out of handmade blue paper to represent the sky and coated in wax to represent clouds.
You will be able to see the Paper Meadows installation at the lawns of the Lanyon at Queen’s University Belfast from Monday 6 June to Sunday 12 June. We hope you enjoy our work and take as much inspiration from nature as we have.”