Curbarium
Urban plant life + billboard + zine
Curbarium
Curbarium unfolded as a study of the wild within the urban - a response to Coalville’s quietly luminous botany and the plants that persist along pavements, verges and forgotten thresholds. This commission centred on the resilience of these species and the untold stories they imprint on the fabric of the town. Printmaking sessions with over 40 local teenagers opened up a rich visual language of marks, shapes and botanical fragments. Their prints became a catalyst for the final site-specific billboard: a composition of bold iconography and hand drawn graphic art. Vibrant and openly optimistic, the billboard disrupted the rhythm of the street, offering a brief recalibration - a reminder that nature is not elsewhere, but here, embedded in the everyday.
A limited-edition zine evolved alongside the installation. Composed with layers of participants prints, shaped through careful sequencing and interwoven with a poem responding to the force and fragility of the seed, this hand-sewn publication became an intimate counterpoint to the billboard - a quieter but equally resonant narrative and voice for the sometimes overlooked habitats in our urban world. Commissioners: The National Forest, Arts Council England
Curbarium zine pages / Prints created participants
