Paul Harfleet calls himself an "accidental
activist" though others call him an installation artist, photographer,
therapist, and, the one I like, guerrilla gardener.
Harfleet is the creator of the Pansy Project in Great Britain,
where a solitary flower is planted in the nearest soil to the spot where
homophobic abuse has reportedly happened. He used to work mainly in Manchester
and Liverpool—creating his Pop-Up Plantings—but this summer he says he’ll plants
pansies in more than a hundred sites across London. He will then photograph
each pansy and then name after whatever abusive phrase was thrown.
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| Paul Harfleet |
Harfleet created
the project to highlight homophobic attacks by planting seeds of hope for those
affected by them. And he has his work cut out for him; in London, there was a
14% rise in homophobic crime from May 2008 to November 2011. In fact, more recent
figures show reported an 11.5% increase in homophobic crimes from February 2011
to February 2012.
A string of homophobic abuse during the summer of 2005 was
the catalyst for the Pansy Project, according to Harfleet: "The day began
with two builders shouting in my direction 'It's about time we went gay-bashing
again isn't it?' [And then] later on, two people shouted homophobic obscenities
from a car window. I began to realise
instances of homophobia build up in your head and you don't realise you are
carrying them with you”
At the end of the day, when he could scarcely take another
abusive taunt, Harfleet says a man called him and his then-boyfriend ‘Ladies’
under his breath.
And the Pansy Project was born.
He was initially unsure on the type of flower to plant, but
discovered the name "pansy" originates from the French word pensée
meaning "thought", as the bowing head of the flower is seen to
visually echo a person's face in deep thought.
"The pansies are still, peaceful and sad - that's what I like about them."—Paul Harfleet
And when he started planting the pansies, and then
photographing them, he began to sense the cathartic effect it might have.
Planting a pansy in a place where once a homophobic taunt was tossed about made
him change his feelings about the location.
"I was acknowledging what had happened but overlaying the memory with something positive. Some people don't get it and think I'm perpetuating a derogatory term for gayness by planting the pansy. But, most people understand it's a positive thing I do."—Paul Harfleet
And now, eight years later, having planted thousands of
pansies everywhere from Istanbul to New York City, he has realized that sometimes
the simplest ideas can be the most effective. And with social media growing
more and more every day, with people having access to the stories of hate
crimes, gay bashings, and verbal abuse around the world, he is being inundated
with locations where abuse has happened.
This week, he planted his first flower of the Pansy project in
London, in Canary Wharf, where a bunch of kids walked past him and called him a
‘faggot’. A pansy grows on the nearest patch of grass to the shopping center.
Next week, he will begin planting flowers at locations where
more high profile homophobic abuse cases have happened. He’ll start with the
site where Jody Dobrowski was killed in 2005. Dobrowski was a 24-year-old assistant bar
manager was punched and kicked death by two men who believed him
to be gay.
A pansy for your thoughts.
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| 'Queer'--Hill Street, Belfast |
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| 'Faggot'--Canary Wharf |
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| 'Batty Boy'--Manchester |
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| 'I think it's time we went gay bashing again'--Manchester |
source and a h/t to ISBL reader Helen for pointing me toward this story
