Abstract

This exhibition is a project of slow walks (what I call meanders) around the centre and edge lands of Sunderland with different groups of people.

The project Street Flowers: Urban Survivors of the Privileged Land has, to date, involved over 100 people in a series of meanders and workshops around Sunderland. During these events, our discussions also meander across a range of subjects; art and natural history; art and philosophy; art and social history and art and political history. The meanders also take the form of a 4-mile wildlife recording transect through Sunderland’s city centre, and we have noted over 150 species of flora and fauna including finding a Squinancywort on the banks of the River Wear close to the Glass centre on reclaimed industrial land – by some distance the most northerly record of this plant which is common on the Southern Downs. The aim of these meanders is to create closer links between wildlife, people and places – encouraging people to value the habitats that are on their own doorstep. The walks are about well-being – about gaining a deeper knowledge of, and engagement with, our environment. The artworks which arise from the walks, and the discussions, have been shown locally in galleries and public spaces. It is important that the work is shown locally – that local people get to take part in the meanders and see the work produced from them - this is what the project is about