Moments in time:Plant installations at St Pancras
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Suddenly St Pancras International has bloomed with plant installations. The lovers of The Meeting Place are now stepping through a field of sunflowers, plants sprout from giant pillars, curious travellers are invited to peer through peepholes at a secret sea of day-glo vrieseas and a gigantic planter sports 800 sunflowers turning their heads to the Euston Road.
The exhibits have all been produced by the indoor garden designer, Ian Drummond, well known for his work for the BAFTAs, London Fashion Week and Elton John’s White Tie and Tiara Ball.
His ‘Living with Nature’ installations, use the station’s vast public spaces to mark private milestones - ‘diary pages’ -from Drummond’s life in horticulture- along with allusions to the role of nature in relation to the city and to art. Thus the exhibition begins with ‘High Rise Jungle’, roof –high containers, filled with plants suggesting Ian’s first window box gardens and the creation of green spaces in the city. It then moves on to the magical excitement of nature in childhood signified by the shed-shaped structure filled with vrieseas and then to the turning point of finding the right career path symbolised by the 800 sunflowers or tournesols
Indoors, visitors to the Renaissance Hotel reception area are met with a smaller scale table- top installation of twenty five perspex boxes displayed as an aerial view of a city landscape or a collection of treasures. Showcasing landmarks in Drummond’s career, contents range from sunflower seeds for childhood, spider plants for a first Chelsea garden and cyclamen with specially designed lace by fashion designer and painter, Gyunel Rustamova,who is a collaborator in this show.
This bold and imaginative display, which throughout treats plants as art gallery exhibits, despite being two months in the making, is set to last only the first ten days of October, echoing the ephemeral nature of the flowers - so you have just a few days to catch it.
“I’m so excited to be creating such a wonderful exhibition in such a beautiful and iconic space,” said Ian. “ The exhibition focusses on amazing flowers and plants in an urban setting and I really hope people are keen to come down and marvel at the transformation.”